wilesmt

On a Disastrous Jobs Number, Recession is Obvious

Contrary to popular belief, a recession is not defined as two quarters of negative GDP growth. I’m not sure who exactly came up with that idea, but I’m fairly confident it was someone in the media trying to feed America’s uneducated society.
The National Bureau of Economic Research is the only organization that really tells us when we are in a recession. And even they don’t know until after the fact.
The thought that we should know the exact moment that we are in a recession is obnoxious; it takes months to compile all the data you need to truly understand this kind of stuff.

Why Inflation Is Lower Than You Think

Most people get inflation all wrong - it is not an increase in prices. An increase in prices is merely an indicator of inflation (however, increased prices are not always a result of inflation.) Oil and food prices went up? So what, this can be attributed just as much to an increase in demand from China (or other emerging markets) as an increase in the money supply. Hence the total increase in prices of these goods is not sorely the result of inflation.