Throw Away the Stats, Americans Say "Recession"

Good Morning, official statisticians and GDP bean-counters.  I’m sorry to inform you that your services will no longer be necessary for the balance of the year.

No, this isn’t because of the countless revisions that render your every piece of real-time data moot 6 weeks after the fact…we’re over that and have learned to live with it.  No, we’ll not be needing you this fall because no matter what .8% or .7% sliver of a growth rate you’ll come up with to say “See!  No recession!“, the rest of us here in the real world (those of us who are not the vice president of a too big to fail bank or a venture capitalist running around in a blazer-hooded sweatshirt combo) already know the truth.

Here’s CNN (emphasis Daddy’s):

Economic fears are not diminishing. More than eight in 10 Americans think the economy is in another recession, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. One-third of those surveyed think it’s serious. While the country isn’t technically in a recession because the economy hasn’t experienced two straight quarters of negative growth, the poll’s results highlight the importance of President Barack Obama’s jobs speech next Thursday night.

So are we (the colloquial ‘we’) wrong and just not appreciating the fact that the recovery is happening all around us?  Or is the balance sheet recession simply continuing apace until the painful process of deleveraging runs its course?  Or did we recover and fall back into recession again?  Most American’s can’t keep up with the official data points that determine these things.  All they know is that the unemployment rate got high and stayed high.  They have almost no money in stocks or commodities so the easing programs were invisible to them other than raising gasoline prices here and there.

For most people, the summer of 2011 was bullshit.  Business slowed down noticeably, a few friends and neighbors got laid off while no one was hired, and for some reason there was a Thor and a Captain America and a Green Lantern movie out at the same time and we still can’t figure out why.

Poll: 8 in 10Think We’re In a Recession (CNN)