UNEXPECTEDLY: Biden Team Goes into Recession Denial. Welcome to ‘It’s Not a Recession, We Swear!’ Week
Politico’s Ben White characterizes this week as a “Category 5 economic storm,” but I think the dominant theme will be, “It’s not a recession, we swear!”
As much as economy-watchers will be studying the Consumer Confidence Index numbers on Tuesday and the Federal Reserve meeting and decision on interest rates Wednesday, the biggest deal will be the numbers for second-quarter economic growth, announced at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Thursday morning. We don’t know what the second-quarter economic numbers are going to be, but they’re probably not going to be good. The Atlanta Fed thinks it will show that the U.S. GDP shrank 1.6 percent in the last quarter. The previous quarter was a decline of 1.6 percent as well — so if the Atlanta Fed projection is correct, Thursday will bring news that the U.S. is now in a recession, at least by the traditional definition. (Even if it doesn’t, and it shows GDP growth at 0.0 or slightly higher, the U.S. is still in lousy near-recessionary conditions.)
Biden and his team will argue that, despite the numbers, the U.S. isn’t really in a recession. In fact, White writes that if Republicans declare we’re in recession, “It will not be true. At least not yet. But President Joe Biden and Democratic candidates across the country will face a daunting and possibly impossible challenge explaining to people why it’s not true.”
Jimmy Carter’s late economics advisor, Alfred “Bananas” Kahn, could not be reached for comment.
Related: New marker laid down:
“The Taliban won’t take over Afghanistan.”
“Inflation won’t be a problem.” https://t.co/LgJUfSIwKj
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) July 25, 2022