NBER: Recession might have started in 2000

[Gulf Coast J]

Not that it really matters, but this is interesting for people who like to follow this kind of thing. The NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) is widely considered the official source on dating recessions. They look at more than just GDP growth to determine the duration of a recession. Here is some information on how they do it: http://www.nber.org/cycles.html/


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38826-2004Jan22?language=printer
"By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 22, 2004; 1:34 PM


The last recession may have started in the last months of the Clinton administration rather than at the beginning of the Bush administration.

The panel of economists that serves as the official timekeeper for the nation's recessions is considering moving the starting date for the most recent economic decline back to November or December of 2000, a member of the group said today, confirming a report that appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

"We have discussed it already and there seems to be some inclination to move the date" to some time in the last three months of 2000, said Victor Zarnowitz. He is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research's business cycle dating committee, which determines the widely accepted start and end dates to U.S. recessions."

[salinen]

1. Well if the recession started under Clinton

that must mean it must continue under chimp. This "logic" is about at the jr. high level. No offense to 8th graders.

[Gulf Coast J]

2. Whose logic is that?

I'm not sure I understand your post. Nobody in the article was placing blame on anyone.

[salinen]

3. Gulf

I was just making a comment how all the RW pundits always say that the recession started under Clintons watch. My point is that a recession start date has nothing to do with anything. So for 3/4 of this term and there remains a recession. How many more years is the statute of limitations on "Clintons" recession?

[Lorien]

4. Throughout 2000, Dick, Bush* and everyone

associated with the campaign "talked down" the great economy, saying that a recession was right around the corner; well, they certainly created one! It was the only spin they could put on Clinton's achievements (you know, the same economic plan which repugs said they would be "in no way held responsible for" early in Clinton's first term, then took credit for, saying it was actually Reagan's retroactive economy)?
They continued to hammer away at the recession theme, created a recession, and now guess who they're going to blame for it?

[tritsofme]

5. That is spin,

just because it is left wing spin doesn't make it any more credible than RW spin.

The tech bubble burst in 1999, and Greenspan slammed on the breaks when he sniffed inflation. Clinton was not immune from the natural turns of the business cycle, and anyone that was paying attention saw that recession was probably imminent in 2000, as growth was very anemic throughout the year, and new numbers show that in Q3 2000 there was a small retraction in GDP.

The question is not when the recession started, but what bush did to react to it.

He gave away huge sums of money to the ultra rich that are for the most part sheltered from the effects of recession, and did nothing to help middle and lower income people.

A responsible president would have cut taxes on middle and lower class people, the one that would really benefit, and invest more in our infastructure instead of watching it crumble.

When Bushco was talking about downturn and recession in 2000, I agreed with them, but my question was, "now what?" and that is where they failed.

[tritsofme]

6. kick

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProudGerman]

10. sorry, can't agree

What needs to be "pounded into the head" of middle America is that the Dipshit has had a recession his whole term, and has done jack shit about it, except gave money back to those who already had too much.

The message should be, Times have been tough, we've all felt it. Well, most of us have. The President sure hasn't done anything to help us deal with it, why should we vote for him? When the poor got poorer, Bush did his damndest to help the rich get richer.

[Silverhair]

8. Doesn't really matter if it did start under Clinton.

The economy is cyclic, and self correcting. The actions of the gov't affect the baseline that the economy cycles about, not the cycle itself. The recession reached it's natural end and started up. Neither Clinton is to blamed for the recession nor is Bush to be given the credit for the recovery.

However, by altering the baseline, Bush has effected how high the recovery will go and how long it will last. But that won't be known until after the election.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

9. bush* ordered 7 people to rewrite economic history of his presidency...

that's the facts!....he wanted the dates of recession changed from march 2001 to 2000...read Krugman's book "The great unraveling" and O'Neil's book "the price of loyalty"....it's all there

[Gulf Coast J]

12. Could you provide more detail?

I don't have either book, but I find it hard to believe that any of the people who date the business cycle would bend to Bush's demands.

Which one of these seven people gave in to Bush?

Robert Hall, Chair
Martin Feldstein, President, NBER
Jeffrey Frankel
Robert Gordon
Christina Romer
David Romer
Victor Zarnowitz

[ElsewheresDaughter]

14. i'm sorry if i mislead you...i didn't say "they gave into Bush" ..i should

have been more articulate ....."bush requested that a review be made and that the date be changed to Nov 2000....i do belkieve that the NBER will leave the date as it stands...but the RW spindoctors are giving it a wirl anyway...they throw shit and hopes that some will stick to their dittoheads.....
http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0401/23/b08.html

The NBER last changed a decision on dating a recession back in 1975. But the group's job this time was complicated by a number of factors, including a revision of the statistics making up the gross domestic product.

<NBER hasn't changed a decission in 30 years who requested this and who is putting pressure to do so????>

That revision, released last month, showed that the GDP, the country's total output of goods and services, shrank at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the July-September quarter of 2000. Before the revisions, the GDP had remained positive through all of 2000 and turned negative for the first three quarters of 2001

<snip>
If the committee does decide to revise the starting date of the recession, it would take away Clinton's claim to be the first president since Lyndon Johnson not to have a downturn during his administration.

[Gulf Coast J]

15. Where does that article state that Bush requested the change?

One of the economist who makes the decision was on the Bureau of Economic Advisors under Clinton. Why would he even talk about revising the date unless he thought there was some merit to it.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

16. oh please..who else but him and his cabal would?...

and the man who was with Clintons is 1 man...

[Gulf Coast J]

17. So let me get this straight

A highly respected private organization which has had twelve Nobel Prize winning researchers and plenty of other highly respected economists (including Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz) is going to alter its position because the President wants them to? Did you ever consider that maybe the recession actually did start in 2001? Why must every economic news release be some sort of dark conspiracy?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

18. myomy...that sounds "fair and balanced"

[Skittles]

11. ha ha, ha ha ha ha

pathetic

[JCMach1]

13. I have consistently said the origin was the Bush/Gore

controversy and the subsequent fallout from Cheney's commentary about the economy before the innauguration...

It was a Bush recession... as it is a Bush stagnation...

[ignatius]

19. And the irony is, Bush used the "strong economy" and the bulging

surplus to make the case for his 1st round of tax cuts..remember we can afford to give their money back..then suddenly the surplus morphed into a huge defict(Funny how reducing taxes will do that) and we needed another tax cut for the wealthy to create jobs.

Fuzzy math, screwy accounting and you can make the numbers anything you want.

[BiggJawn]

20. Didn't start to nose-dive until after the election...

The one held in November, not that farce the SCROTUS presided over in December.

The Nation's top job was in dispute. Nobody thinks a thing about it when The Market acts like a reluctant virgin and goes skittering down the tubes because Greenspan frowns on TV or other stupid excuses, why shouldn't The Market dive screaming down the toilet as a result of the Selection?

But since the slide started before the Dim Son was installed on Jan. 20th, it's "Clinton's (penis) fault"...