patrick.net

This report only focuses on the last one that ended. It has nothing to do with the double dip that has just started.

The recession has been over since January 2009, obviously if are or have been unemployed for the last 20 months, your a lazy bum that enjoys living off other hard working citizens. Go get a job you bum!

On to other news, Who the freak decides when a recession is over or even when it begins? Perhaps the media didn't read the fine print footnote on the report, where it says we are now in a depression.

past recession has ended. no question.

the article explained their rational.
* "The committee decided that any future downturn of the economy would be a new recession and not a continuation of the recession that began in December 2007."
* "did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity."
* "Rather, it decided that June was when the economy hit bottom"
* "This is not a robust recovery"

I agree it's over and been over by definition

What defines a recession is always up for debate. From Wikipedia:

The NBER defines an economic recession as: "a significant decline in [the] economic activity spread across the country, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP growth, real personal income, employment (non-farm payrolls), industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales."

By this definition, if the economy sinks and settles along the bottom, the recession is over as soon as you hit the bottom. End of recession does NOT mean that the economy has recovered, it just means that it has stopped sinking.

Whether "stopping sinking" is good enough for the average American is also up for debate (sarcasm alert).

justme says

What defines a recession is always up for debate. From Wikipedia:
The NBER defines an economic recession as: “a significant decline in [the] economic activity spread across the country, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP growth, real personal income, employment (non-farm payrolls), industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.”
By this definition, if the economy sinks and settles along the bottom, the recession is over as soon as you hit the bottom. End of recession does NOT mean that the economy has recovered, it just means that it has stopped sinking.
Whether “stopping sinking” is good enough for the average American is also up for debate (sarcasm alert).

nber uses their own definition of a recession, so they are technically correct in defining the end of "their" recession.

people that disagree with nber, simply don't understand nber's definition of a recession.
they think their definition is the one nber is using (which is clearly wrong).

There is a different measuring stick for Silicon Valley.

# of new and existing public companies and
$ of new funding rolling in for private companies.

In California after 1989-1991 recession, around 3 solid years of declines, it took several years for any recovery to happen.
Recovery did happen in other states, but CA was left behind. Not sure about the 18 months figure being the longest anyway.
With so much M&A happening and higher unemployment, no need for new hiring, we may not be close to being finished as far a recession is concerned.

In the case of Public Companies. We have a long way to go.

Vanishing Public Companies Lead To The Incredible Shrinking Silicon Valley

That’s not just less than the dot-com era, that’s well below the 315 public companies the valley had in 1994 when the Mercury News started keeping track.

This so called double dip, is really what PIMCO has coined "The New Normal"

justme says

What defines a recession is always up for debate. From Wikipedia:
The NBER defines an economic recession as: “a significant decline in [the] economic activity spread across the country, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP growth, real personal income, employment (non-farm payrolls), industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.”
By this definition, if the economy sinks and settles along the bottom, the recession is over as soon as you hit the bottom. End of recession does NOT mean that the economy has recovered, it just means that it has stopped sinking.
Whether “stopping sinking” is good enough for the average American is also up for debate (sarcasm alert).

Absolutely right with your analysis and I dont think we are done with declines just yet.

justme says

By this definition, if the economy sinks and settles along the bottom, the recession is over as soon as you hit the bottom.

So it's just another way to say it can't get any worse then this.

TechGromit says

justme says

By this definition, if the economy sinks and settles along the bottom, the recession is over as soon as you hit the bottom.

So it’s just another way to say it can’t get any worse then this.

or it is not going to get better than this :)

Isn't that how a recession ends? Things don't get worse. They start to go positive.

Or are you trying to state that to claim a recovery, we need to reduce unemployement to historic lows, housing needs to go back to 2008 levels AND we should toss in some inflation, because 2008 + some inflation is about where we should be today!

http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/20/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm

Well the stock market believes it anyway, if it's in the news, it must be true.

Bubble days are here again. You get the home equity loan and I'll pick out the granite counter top.

New normal = deadcat roll.

There was no depression for the poor then and there is no Great Recession for the poor now. How can the recession be over when it never started?

Back in good ol' Alabam we would always sing:
"Well somebody told us Wall Street fell
But we were so poor that we couldn't tell
Cotton was short and the weeds were tall
But Mr. Roosevelt's a gonna save us all"

Really, save us from what? Do the poor now have less than they didn't have in 2008?