I was joking about that last comment.. I know it is accepted as a recession .. but some people require a certain number of consequtive quarters of negative growth before offically callling it that. I would say it ended quite a while ago.. For the argument about low unemployment because people have stopped looking for jobs.. that's an idea that is thrown out in intro econ.. and everyone seems to repeat it.. what are the actual numbers on how many people have just stopped looking?
Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative. - Kurt Vonnegut
A recession according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. In our case that happened in 2000. By 2001, it was over. So technically we had a very minor recession.
Look here: The Business-Cycle Peak of March 2001 July 17, 2003 announcement October 21, 2003 Memo from the Business Cycle Dating Committee The National Bureau's Business Cycle Dating Committee maintains a chronology of the U.S. business cycle. The chronology identifies the dates of peaks and troughs that frame economic recession or expansion. The period from a peak to a trough is a recession and the period from a trough to a peak is an expansion. According to the chronology, the most recent peak occurred in March 2001, ending a record-long expansion that began in 1991. The most recent trough occurred in November 2001, inaugurating an expansion. Other links Recessions and Recoveries, the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, and related topics National Bureau of Economic Research
