The US is already in a recession. The two quarters of negative growth is not a good means of showing the shape of the economy.
You could have two quarters of -0.5% growth, and that would mean recession. Or one quarter of -3% growth, and that doesn't mean recession, despite being worse than the two quarters. It's a silly way to calculate the state of the economy. Besides that, inflation is intentionally understated, GDP is contracting at a worse rate than stated in the headlines. 2% GDP growth is a recession in this environment of intentional central bank inflation schemes.
Not once post WW2, has the US economy shrank by more than 1.5% in a single quarter and then not entered a recession (or already been in one).
Housing has begun to tip over, as the Fed pulls its asset inflation program. Corporate earnings growth is anemic at best, most blue chips are struggling to grow at all (MCD, KO, IBM, WMT, etc). The vast majority of growth in the stock market has come from multiple expansion, not from earnings growth. Full time jobs are still far under where they were in 2007, while simultaneously welfare benefits are dramatically higher, including labor problem indicators such as SS disability (and of course labor force participation is at 35 year lows).
This all with 0% interest rates. If you can't grow an economy with 0% interest rates, you're in for a very, very bad time.
Stocks tend to hit new record highs just before a recession begins. This happened with both of prior Fed asset inflation parties, in the late 1990s (2000 peak) and early 2000s (2007 peak). They repeated the same inflation recipe, trying to fake a wealth effect, and turned it up several notches. The same result will occur again on the backside, for obvious reasons.
You could have two quarters of -0.5% growth, and that would mean recession. Or one quarter of -3% growth, and that doesn't mean recession, despite being worse than the two quarters. It's a silly way to calculate the state of the economy. Besides that, inflation is intentionally understated, GDP is contracting at a worse rate than stated in the headlines. 2% GDP growth is a recession in this environment of intentional central bank inflation schemes.
Not once post WW2, has the US economy shrank by more than 1.5% in a single quarter and then not entered a recession (or already been in one).
Housing has begun to tip over, as the Fed pulls its asset inflation program. Corporate earnings growth is anemic at best, most blue chips are struggling to grow at all (MCD, KO, IBM, WMT, etc). The vast majority of growth in the stock market has come from multiple expansion, not from earnings growth. Full time jobs are still far under where they were in 2007, while simultaneously welfare benefits are dramatically higher, including labor problem indicators such as SS disability (and of course labor force participation is at 35 year lows).
This all with 0% interest rates. If you can't grow an economy with 0% interest rates, you're in for a very, very bad time.
Stocks tend to hit new record highs just before a recession begins. This happened with both of prior Fed asset inflation parties, in the late 1990s (2000 peak) and early 2000s (2007 peak). They repeated the same inflation recipe, trying to fake a wealth effect, and turned it up several notches. The same result will occur again on the backside, for obvious reasons.