perfidy

The National Bureau of Economic Research have declared that our once-and-current national recession actually ended back in November 2001 (Coverage in the Boston Globe here).

Ohhh, that's why unemployment is up and everyone from AOL to the state of Massachusetts is broke.

Interestingly, the NBER had a hard time with this decision, and according to the piece acted now mainly to set the 2001 downturn apart from any future downturns. "The main reason that the committee's decision in this episode was particularly difficult was the divergent behavior of employment,'' the NBER said. ''The committee felt that it was important to wait until real GDP was substantially above its pre-recession peak before determining that a trough had occurred.''

The NBER also qualified its claim, saying "In determining that a trough occurred in November 2001, the committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that month. A recession is a period of falling economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. The trough marks the end of the declining phase and the start of the rising phase of the business cycle. Economic activity is typically below normal in the early stages of an expansion, and it sometimes remains so well into the expansion"

Possible Translation 1: "The bleeding has stopped, sir, but may I suggest you not try boxing a tiger again for a while?"

Possible Translation 2: "We are as baffled as the rest of you. Can I borrow a fiver?"