The 'Recession' Is a Media Myth

Tuesday , April 01, 2008
By John R. Lott, Jr.

During the 2000 election, with Bill Clinton as president, the economy
was
viewed through rose-colored glasses. According to polls, voters didn't
realize that the country was in a recession. Although the economy
started
shrinking in July 2000, most Americans through the entire year thought
that the economy was fine.

Mary Rosh is at it again. Compare this with something Lott says below:

Despite all that, this last week, Barack Obama proclaimed "As most
experts
know, our economy is in a recession." Hillary Clinton made similar
staements last fall. Yet, as any economist knows, a recession is two
consecutive quarters of negative growth, and we haven't even had one
single quarter of negative growth reported.

Mary is screwing the numbers at both ends. GDP growth actually peaked in
the
first quarter of 2001. (NBER's revised date is now February 2001.) So,
according to his statement immediately above, that's when the recession
began in 2001. But now he's saying that the current recessionary period
doesn't meet the same criteria that he used for 2001 -- a pool of four
sets
of data, of which GDP is one, that NBER uses to determine the peaks of
growth.

As we saw when he was here on RCM under hist pseudonym, Mr. Lott likes to
twist numbers to suit his agenda.

--
Ed Huntress


Oh yeah, it's the media that has fooled everyone into believing that things
are ****ty. It has nothing to do with the $3.50 a gallon gasoline, or the
run up in prices for food, or all the stories of people losing jobs, or the
news about the huge losses in the financial sector and credit markets, or
the 12% decline in the stock market, or the continuing rise in health care
costs, not to mention all the foreclosures and the huge losses in the value
of everyone's homes. Yep, I think it's just a myth people are buying into
that things are declining. I mean look at the facts. Things are great,
right?

Hawke