Working Thoughts

Today the National Bureau of Economic Research officially declared a recession – starting in December of 2007. So what is the NBER? Thanks to wikipedia:

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is a private, nonprofit research organization dedicated to studying the science and empirics of economics, especially the American economy.
It is “committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic
research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the
academic community.” It publishes NBER Working Papers and books. The
NBER is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts with branch offices in Palo Alto, California, and New York City.

The NBER was founded in 1920. Its first staff economist and Director of Research was Wesley Mitchell. Simon Kuznets was working at the NBER when the U.S. government asked him to help organize a system of national accounts in 1930, which was the beginning of the official measurement of GDP and other related indices of economic activity. Due to its work on national accounts and business cycles, the NBER is well-known for providing start and end dates for recessions in the United States.

I felt fairly satisfied today as I heard the news. Why? Because that is almost to the day I said a recession was upon us. In fact, it was November 29th, 2007 in my It’s Not a Recession, But It Sure Feels Like It post. Much of my analysis was based on an October 24th, 2007 post called Peanut Butter and Pasta. Here is a list of my past entries on the recession subject with a little blurb about each:

So When Did the Recession Start? (10/20/08) – This is a preliminary entry to today’s news. I mostly comment on a Floyd Norris blog entry saying the 1st Birthday of the Recession was near.

1993 and 2008 – Same Symptoms, Different Diseases (10/9/08) – This just compares the recent economic troubles to those of the Great Depression. Thankfully, the US Federal Government has not repeated the same mistakes. This entry also has some interesting stats.

The Six Year Pay Cut (8/25/08) – This entry is about the time it took for US income levels to reach the levels of 2000. I believe that is an underlining issue with the current economic times – too much economic reward reaped through productivity gains, went to too few people.

The Different Classes in the US (3/9/08) – This entry is a pointer to a NY Times illustration which has several graphics about class mobility. education, demographics and so on. I think this important to know during a recession because recessions are game changers.

Bubbles are Bursting (3/6/08) – This is one of my most popular entries. It was originally a little tongue in cheek, but it does articulate what eventually happened in regards to credit and oil.

Olympic Prediction (1/25/08) – I was going for a shot in the dark prediction on this one. I missed on the reasons why the US tanked in early September, but I wasn’t too far off on the timing or the possible consequences.

Definition of Recession (1/7/08) – I just wanted to explain what a recession is. I suspected the US was in one when I wrote this post. I didn’t imagine the length of the recession at the time though.

It’s Not a Recession, But It Sure Feels Like It – Stats (11/30/07) – This entry supports my rational for the entry the day before. The theme I honed in on was spending and income. Those reasons still do underline our current economic problems but simply having a job now takes priority over the wage.

It’s Not a Recession, But It Sure Feels Like It (11/29/07) – Perhaps my most proud entry considering todays news that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has dated the recession to December of 2007. I concentrated on spending as the reason for believing a recession was happening.

October Job Market Analysis (11/6/07) – This entry is one of the first I wrote that outlined the coming economic situation. I talk about the lack of big ticket spending, European strength, and commodities being high for the near term and then sinking once the US economy stalls.

Peanut Butter and Pasta (10/24/07) – Another first entry to show some analytics. I took a report about grocery spending and predicted economic trouble. The premise is war preparation and how spending to prepare for war pretty much means you are committed to the fight. Well, the opposite is true as well.