OK, the results are out. We are not in recession as we stood at .6% economic growth. Guess G.W. got it right the other day when he said we were in a period of slow growth. It was actually the same as the last quarter of 2007. Want to bet the national media keeps up their drum beat of recession until the elections this fall?
Your quote = "We are not in a recession"...
If we are in a recession right now, you wouldn't know it. See you won't know what the 2nd quarter (the quarter we're in right now) numbers are until oh, say, July or August. So by then you will know if we were in a recession as of May 1, 2008. Don't you understand that the numbers they use to define economic growth trail the actual dates by several months?
You can go on with your political agenda, i have no problem with that... but to set the record straight, you (nor I) have any factual basis to know if we are in a recession as of today or not. Take your smug math talk somewhere where no one is smart enough to know better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RecessionMost important quote:
"Because of the way a recession is defined, the beginning (peak in the economic cycle) or end (trough) of a recession can only be identified after the change in the trend has been present for several months.
The 2001 recession was announced by the NBER in November 2001[8], which later turned out to be the true. Thus the recession ended the month it was announced by the NBER. In July 1981 the NBER declared an end to a six-month recession from January to July 1980, the last year of Jimmy Carter's presidency. For the 1981-82 recession, which was during President Reagan's first term, the NBER announced the July 1981 peak in January 1983, and the November 1982 trough in July 1983.[9]"
Now, do I need to go on or can we agree that you were wrong?