“we never left the recession of March 2020 and … everything has been getting gradually worse”

I subtitle this post “The Shadow of ShadowStats” which is now offline and available only by subscription. Referring to under-estimated inflation, Peter St. Onge (Heritage) and Jeffrey Tucker (Brownstone Institute) argued in June that not only are we now in a recession, we’ve been in recession for the past four years!

They note that John Williams’ ShadowStats (the usefulness of which has been evaluated in the past, here) indicates much higher inflation than officially reported. They also point out that deflated retail sales and new manufacturing orders has been down since the beginning of 2021 (conveniently omitting the NBER defined recession period of 2020M02-04 and post-recession period 2020M04-M12).

They also stress the fact that in defining output, government consumption should be excluded, or alternatively, private consumption should be the object of focus. In Figure 1, I show the relevant series.

Figure 1: GDP (black, left scale), GDP ex-government consumption (blue, left scale), consumption (teal, right scale), all in bn.Ch.2017$ SAAR. Source: BEA 2024Q2 2nd release via FRED, author’s calculations.

GDP ex-government consumption looks much like GDP (and pretty close to GDO and GDP+, shown in this post). There are negative growth rates in consumption, but there are no two-consecutive quarter events, which seems to be the St.Onge-Tucker criterion.

Note that Dr. Antoni has elsewhere indicated there was a recession in 2022H1.

 

 

 

 

28 thoughts on ““we never left the recession of March 2020 and … everything has been getting gradually worse””

  1. pgl

    “We are used to this kind of language blaming the pandemic for the results of lockdowns. Of course, it was a man-made decision to turn a respiratory virus into an excuse to shut down the world.”

    Wait – Bruce Hall Covid denialism again? When I read stupid trash like this – I generally stop reading.

  2. pgl

    OK I read on and it got worse starting with

    ‘What did the money injection do? It generated inflation. How much? Sadly, we do not know. The Bureau of Labor Statistics simply cannot keep up’

    Oh I see the BLS folks are lying. Oh wait – these clowns look at the price change in food over a 3.5 year period and say inflation = 35%> Bruce Hall-ism again. And flat out misrepresenting what that NBER paper was about. So much dishonesty that they make Trump-Vance look good by comparison.

  3. pgl

    I could go on but the jist of this rant is that just because some series are reported in nominal terms – no one does inflation adjustments? Seriously? Even Kevin Drum does that – just not as dishonestly as these two clowns. Big Macs are the gold standard for measuring true inflation? Maybe they will tell us next that Big Macs are health foods. Works for Trump!

  4. pgl

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/is-the-us-headed-toward-an-economic-slowdown/vi-AA1pFp9a?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=ad8b31ba517f421ab53cb7245bd40323&ei=36#details

    As dumb aa these clowns are – check out the LIES from Kevin Hassett. First of all he called Fauci silly over the COVID stuff. Like he knows a damn thing about medicine. And oh – Garland should have told Biden that student loan forgiveness is unConstitutional?

    But recall lying Kevin was telling us the FED should not lower interest rates because the economy is strong. But NOW little Kevin says it is not strong even though BEA says real GDP grow was 3% last quarter. For some dumba$$ reason little Kevin thinks BEA should take the worst possible BLS report and use it to downward revise its estimate of real GDP>

    Look I doubt Kevin is THIS stupid. But he knows the Fox Noise listeners are stupid so why not lie though his rear end to him? MAGA!

  5. pgl

    “GDP ex-government consumption looks much like GDP”

    The distance between these two captures what is happening to government purchases – right? Well – this difference is not rising nearly as much as MAGA morons like Bruce Hall suggest.

  6. pgl

    Real Government Consumption Expenditures and Gross Investment
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GCEC1

    Real government purchases FELL during the first part of the Biden term. These clowns – like their favorite student Bruce Hall – are lying.

    BTW – most government purchases are for things that benefit people. Things like roads, buildings, education (the latter which these clowns really need). I know of no economic growth model that disregards the role of government purchases. But these clowns would exclude it???

  7. pgl

    “But the bias is profound these days with explosive government spending.”

    Click on the link to Antoni’s twitter. The tweet shows interest expense on Federal debt but their discussion equates this to an alleged explosion in government purchases? Just wow – these clowns are really DYMB!

  8. pgl

    Peter St Onge’s ‘papers have been published by the Independent Journal, The Heritage Foundation, and the Montreal Economic Institute. His articles on economics and finance have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail, Financial Post, Business Insider, Bloomberg, the Mises Institute, Coindesk, and Zerohedge’. From his bio.

    A resume right up there with the publications of Steve Koptis!

  9. Macroduck

    Right-wing rule of thumb #1: We’re in recession in any election year that a Democrat is in the White House.

    Right-wing rule of thumb #2: Use whatever time period makes the data look bad for Democrats, good for Republicans, or both, no matter how ridiculous the time period.

    Right-wing rule of thumb #3: Don’t tell people about the facts. Tell them how to feel about the facts.

    Right-wing rule of thumb #4:
    Outrage. All the time. Outrage means never having to worry about boring old governance.

  10. Macroduck

    Kamala Harris has said she intends to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet.

    Clinton had Bill Cohen. They occasionally disagreed on policy but mostly worked well together. How one feels about Cohen’s performance depends mostly on how one feels about U.S. policy at the time – he generally got good marks for his management of the DOD.

    Harris could do worse than someone like Cohen. Problem is, the current GOP has almost no one like Cohen. (Even typing “almost” injured my rotator cuff, and may have damaged my soul.)

    Wild guess? Liz Cheney, because it would make a statement about Trumpism. And because it has to be someone with no future in the Republican Party. But please, please, not at State or DOD. She’s a Elliot Abrams clone, supporter of her daddy’s war in Iraq, an ideologue whose ideas have been rebuked by history.

    Despite her rotten record on actual policy, Cheney is the best the GOP has to offer. That is, aside from mayt a few governors, most of whom still have something to lose by putting public service ahead of politics.

    2. Martin

      Yep… the lying Harris/(valor stealing) Walz ticket will never pick a repub that is strong….. just a platitude for now in the days before votes can start to be cast. Can’t trust her flip flop attitude Same old bus…same horrible destination… different driver is all.

        1. Martin

          LOL truth hurts eh? Stolen Valor boy seems to have you down in the dumps about inflation? wish we could go back to the good days of just before Bumbler Biden took office the the cackler.

          1. Macroduck

            Martin, that’s so cute! Did you think that up all by yourself? So original. So brainy, like really impressively brainy.

            But here’s the thing. The folks who show up here, as often as not, like to see some facts before they hear conclusions. Not something Jesse Watters said – actual facts. You may be happy to ape whatever is playing on the right-wing jukebox, but that not the rest of us.

          2. pgl

            Yea – you are one dumb troll. I guess actually READING the post here on inflation is something your single digit IQ cannot muster.

  11. baffling

    these guys mostly relate to conspiracy theory folks, which is what best describes the maga movement these days. weak minds succumb to conspiracy theories. think deep state, qanon, pizzagate, birthers, etc. con men, like trump, prey on the weak minds. so if you have fallen for the maga movement, guess what camp you are in? care to stay in that camp? you know there is a con man at work, when the data disputes their argument, they begin to question the data.

  16. pgl

    Trump Suggests Gold Star Families to Blame for Arlington Cemetery Controversy
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-suggests-gold-star-families-to-blame-for-arlington-cemetery-controversy/ar-AA1pIXBG?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=0503541fb16543aab65eb1dbf4bd6267&ei=9

    Trump will double down on any lie and has no problem throwing anyone under the bus – including the Gold Star family that invited him to Arlington. Yea he’s that disgusting but I guess since I said that his minnie me JD Vance will tell me to “go to hell”!

    1. Martin

      Looks like you like to make stuff up about motives…. so you likely won’t ever post the link of the GS family who kicked the one reporter to the curb by telling him that they were the ones who invited Trump…. It is sad to see the most left / liberal leaning person running for the democrats who already have spoken loudly enough that she has 0 ( z e r o ) votes not a one vote by any delegate in any primary… she was among the first few to exit back in the last race due to unpopularity (and getting her asz handed to her by Gabby in a debate) So yeah… support the flip.flopper incompetent gal who was voted by govtrack as the furthest left politician.

      1. Macroduck

        Awww, more cuteness from little Martin! Again with this truly original stuff that you clearly came up with all by yourself! Such big, original ideas from big-boy Martin.

        Keep it up, little fella. This will convince all those college kids you’re just as smart as them.

        1. pgl

          This sad excuse for a troll claimed I made up motives? Funny – I said nothing about the motives behind Trump’s dishonest and disgusting behavior.

  17. Martin

    Educating the libie lefty minds all day for free…. and all that one can muster is ‘troll’ lol . now the clown show is getting more comedy milage… the stolen valor Walz is not claiming (blaming ) grammar on his lies … too sad despicable and disgusting…. but what would one expect from a dem politician eh?

    1. Moses Herzog

      @ Martin Interesting that you would use the phrase “comedy mileage” You should probably learn to spell it first and then progress on to learning the meaning. We don’t want to overtax that thing you label your brain.

    2. pgl

      You not even worth the single word troll. Try making an intelligent contribution for a change. Oh wait – that’s way over your limited abilities.

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