Worst Post WWII Recession ?
“Did you see David Wessel’s WSJ column today? The Journal is already revising the Bush Recession down from Great to merely Bad . . . “
I’m not sure I would call that column, titled Did ‘Great Recession’ Live Up to the Name? “revisionism.” It is a look at the is the best way to describe the 2007-09 economic contraction.Wessel asks “Does it deserve the heavy mantle of “The Great Recession” that it seems to be acquiring? “Great” is a big word, a mark of enormous historical significance. World War I was the Great War until the second world war came along…”
Based on the interactive charts that accompany the article, the answer seems to be yes, “Great” is the right word:
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Change in Nonfarm Payroll
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Change in GDP
Change in Industrial Output
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Source:
Did ‘Great Recession’ Live Up to the Name?
DAVID WESSEL
WSJ, APRIL 8, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303591204575169693166352882.html
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April 8th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Reminds me why I didn’t re-up on my WSJ subscription. That is utterly pathetic.
April 8th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Another word that comes to mind: “catastrophic”. But most of the WSJ’s peeps and readers are doing just fine, so that’s what they really mean. “Those other people” don’t count in the WSJ’s world.
April 8th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
It wouldn’t let me read more than a paragraph without subscribing and I’m not going to subscribe until the masthead reads Fox News-Print Edition.
April 8th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
It hurts my mouth to say this, but at this point, what with Obama continuing to follow-through in a Dubya-esque manner (at least on the foreign policy and fiscal policy fronts), it’s becoming less of a “Dubya’s Great Recession” and more of a “bipartisan joint venture between Dubya and Obama”.
Who says the two parties cannot join forces and cooperate?
April 8th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
It was actually quite fun as I recall.
April 8th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Yeah, I kinda miss it, too. Not to worry. It’ll be back soon enough, if it isn’t already here, hidden from view by the new plaster and wallpaper.
April 8th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
constantnormal:
For the sake of accuracy, it should be called the Great Corporatist Depression.
As a twist on Mark Twain’s saying, “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!” I’ll say that rumors of our economic recovery are also greatly exaggerated.
I know spring is in the air, the flowers are blooming, the critters are acting funny, and hope springs eternal, but wanting to see economic green shoots where there are none is premature and foolish.
There’s still a bunch of completely unresolved dreck under the rug, and even more in the pipeline. Business fundamentals are bad, government spending way up, tax revenues way down, home foreclosures and delinquency rates are going full steam, bankruptcies are up, and state and municipal finances are in tatters.
The US economy is diseased, but in temporary remission. It’s terminally imbalanced. Our industrial base is gone, saturated debt, and dysfunctional from any reasonable regulatory standpoint.
Let the WSJ write any analysis it wants to — after the fat lady sings.
April 8th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Agreed, constantnormal. VERY disappointing.
April 8th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
How about “Ongoing”, I mean just look at those charts. That’s why I love data,it is what it is,no bullshit! We are no-where done with this! Full disclosure,I’m bearish{and have been wrong}but to look at this economic back drop and think the risk/reward is favorable to more upside,to me is borderline “Piggish”,where is demand?
The W.S.J. as some have noted,isn’t what it used to be. Barron’s is a joke too,I keep waiting week in,week out. Still same, lame has been/former shell of itself, almost waste of time…
Jerry
April 8th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
“the Bush Recession”
that is about as pointless as Jerry Boyer’s “Bush Boom”-
two intellectual luminaries on opposite sides of the spectrum- lol
April 8th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
. . .and cognos- if around- just caught your response to my post from yesterday-
my comment-
“bringing the debt of the GSE’s onto the USG’s books increases our debt by the exact amount of debt held by the GSE’s regardless of assets”
is correct- just because you are bringing the assets on the books does not negate the debt . . .so when someone says the USG’s debt will increase- it is a correct statement regardless of any assets that come with the deal
April 8th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
When did they start calling it the Great Depression? It’s way too early to sound the all clear. The bad real estate loans that started the downslide aren’t any where close to resolved and there’s a lot less public tolerance for trillions more of Sunday night sweet heart deals than there was 18 months ago.
April 8th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
And Bush was, like, near the top of the the bottom quartile of post-WWII C-in-Chiefs, not the worst of all time, bar none, even going into the future.
April 8th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
@rktbrker
not only do we still have additional waves of foreclosures ahead, if you look at the chart of bankster leverage over at Jesse’s Cafe Americain
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/04/derivatives-exposure-among-us.html
and you’ll see that we still have insanely dangerous amounts of institutional leverage in play (GS derivatives exposure @ 457X assets at year-end … as I recall, LTCM only needed 100X a far, far smaller asset base to blow itself to Kingdom Come and threaten Western Civilization). And employment is not increasing in any remote approximation of the amount needed to crawl our way out of the muck — when the census winds down later this year, and the million-or-so workers employed there lose their jobs, we’ll see unemployment take another jump up.
Tottering pension funds, states and municipalities scrambling to avoid default (and not quite succeeding), the international bond market looking more and more like a house of cards with each passing day …
I think that 2H2010 is going to be a very exciting time to be alive … provided we survive it. Perhaps we should begin keeping diaries, with the intent of writing the next Crash bestseller in a few years …. I’ll bet that Barry is building a file of notes for just that end … Nightmare on Bailout Street.
April 8th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
constantnormal:
Does Jamie Dimon get to play Freddie Krueger?
April 8th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
I kinda had Lloyd Blankfein in mind, but OK, if Jamie plays Freddie Krueger the Secretary of the Treachery.
Wow … think about that for a moment, as Treachery Secretary, Dimon could steer a wounded GS straight into the waiting arms of JPM, similar to picking up Bear Stearns at $2 … this has the ring of deja vu all over again.
April 8th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
I think there’s a movie in here somewhere …
April 8th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
This is OT (or is it?): http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_obama_palin
Seriously, by adding Palin as a mouthpiece to his already crazy-as-Heaven’s-Gate lineup, is Murdoch trying to ensure the Dems retain political control this November?
In the past few months, I thought the Dems were going to be toast. (“Throw the bums out, even if it means re-electing bums from the other party.”) But, really, who would vote for the GOP? No matter who they pick as a lead, “crazy” is overly represented in that party.
I’d rather go broke with the Dems (continuing centrist, non-reformist, regulatory incompetent, velvet-glove-iron-fist imperialism) than “lose it” with the Repubs eager for the rapture.
It’s frustrating not to have a viable opposition party. Maybe it’s a sign of age. But, the “lesser of two evils” just seems to be getting worse each cycle.
April 8th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
I should’ve waited to post something like that (above) in an “open thread”. It’s mildly related to Murdoch, who seems to be putting his editorial mark on the WSJ. I guess he’s trying to “cross-sell” extra information services to his existing customer base…
April 8th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
@wunsacon: Well, ratings ARE much higher for FOX when they have the Dems to hammer every night, so your theory may hold water.
Palin appeared here in Minneapolis at a fundraiser for that other resident crazy GOP female Michele Bachman. Looked like quite a scene of crazies down at the convention center yesterday. It doesn’t seem like a sound way to win elections but who knows? Maybe in this bizarre time period, it just might work. Gulp.
April 8th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Constantnormal and Mannwich:
There are several hundred thousand’s, if not million + people living in expensive homes virtually rent free for more than a year. This helps printing all the good numbers (greener shoots). If I lived in a expensive home without paying anything, I would be very inclined to help the economy by spending a few bucks on retail and make the numbers look good.
Very soon the bill’s coming due. Who’s paying and for how long…
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BR: You describe this as if its a lifestyle choice. Its (most of the time) not.
April 8th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
O.K., worst since WWII.
But bad enough to justify adding several trillion dollars to the national debt during the period 2008-2012…?
April 8th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
BR: You describe this as if its a lifestyle choice. Its (most of the time) not.
I agree. It’s not lifestyle (as most people who bought these houses already had a good lifestyle and believed that houses were a good investment). If anyone looks at long term Case- Shiller index, houses have been a good long term (alternative) investment. However, in the recent cycle we forgot that the houses ran way way ahead of this index. But, if I have the luxury of making no payment or a very small payment, I would (like any rational human being) begin to like it. This may even embolden me to go spend additional $$$s in other ways. However, I agree with you people don’t deliberately do it but it definitely helps.
The point is extending or prolonging the housing crisis is definitely not helping the housing situation. We can prolong it, but I definitely do not want us to be in the Japanese situation. It’s an option but not a very good one.