Economists Say Recession Started in 2000

[rodbarnett]

The last recession may have started in the last months of the Clinton administration rather than at the beginning of the Bush administration.

The panel of economists that serves as the official timekeeper for the nation's recessions is considering moving the starting date for the most recent economic decline back to November or December of 2000, a member of the group said today, confirming a report that appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

"We have discussed it already and there seems to be some inclination to move the date" to some time in the last three months of 2000, said Victor Zarnowitz. He is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research's business cycle dating committee, which determines the widely accepted start and end dates to U.S. recessions.

The seven-member panel had earlier decided that the recession began in March 2001 and ended in November that year. President Bush took office in January 2001

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38826-2004Jan22?language=printer

comment:More slight of hand statistics

[cthrumatrix]

1. just pure BS for chimpy to claim.... forget facts and definitions

rewrite history...plain and simple

[ET Awful]

3. Yup. I have a hard time believing it took them 3 years to figure that out

n/t

[papau]

8. Indeed this threads title is BS - they "might" move the start date from

March to Feb, 01 as that was the peak of the jobs numbers -

Moving it to November is a wet dream of the GOP

Unless these folks have gotten promises of career improvements if they "do not cause trouble"!!!!

:-)

[dennis4868]

2. The panel of economists =

Rove, Cheney, Card, Hughes, etc...

[Ripley]

4. Who cares?

What has that moranic evil monkey done in 3 frickin years to fix it?

I'm sick of this blame game everyone plays. I thought they were the adults, yet I have never seen those crooks take responsibility for anything bad in our country, just take the credit for things that they have absolutely no influence on. You know, like the big lie about how the tax cuts are responsible for the stock market going up. :eyes:

[bspence]

5. God, the timing on this doesn't smell...

I can't believe they're pulling this shit now. They will stop at nothing...

[tom_paine]

25. Yes, they will stop at nothing...even murder

Ask Wellstone or Cliff Baxter or Jim Hatfield or John Tower or John Heinze.

Oh you can't. They're all dead.

[lancdem]

6. I don't think a final decision has been made

but the timing of this is highly suspect. Just as we enter a president election year they decide to review this? Yeah, right.

[pacifictiger]

9. don't you remember

they started spinning that *** in the second half of 2000 during the election campaign, scaring people, and many people were warning them not to do that because they would create a self fulfilling prophecy.

[Maeve]

7. I prefer the commentary on CNN/Money

http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/22/commentary/column_hays/hays/index.htm
<snip>
What matters now is how this president handles what happens on his watch, even what he inherited, because that is the true measure of the man and his policies.
What's clear is that the stock market bubble had burst and the economy was heading lower when Mr. Bush took office. Then terror attacks, corporate scandals, and wars took the economy even lower.
His medicine was big tax cuts, skewed toward people with wealth, because he believes they are the spenders, the investors the entrepreneurs.
This record is what counts. Not the dates of the last recession.

[stickdog]

24. And spend the money they did.

On gold.

And exporting our jobs to India and China.

[Voltaire99]

10. Experts blame Packer playoff loss on Clinton, too

After careful study, it appears the Big Dog went forward in time from 2000 to last month in a time machine -- just to make Brett Favre throw that interception.

And, the experts add, the only way to prevent further disruptive Clinton time machine travel from the past is to suspend all our civil rights, eliminate taxes for the rich, invade Syria, make George Bush President-for-Life, and regularly transplant newborn infant hearts into the blackened pit of Dick Cheney's vast, cholesterol-drenched chest cavity!

It's not known whether invading France can prevent the 2000-era Clinton from meddling with the present, but experts urge it, anyway, along with painting a giant American flag on the side of the moon.

[seasat]

11. It is interesting the number of stats revised under Shrub

Their revising the date of the recession. There are other threads reporting on revisions to the CPI. They revised the unemployment index in Jan 2003 since they decided the population was growing faster (made unemployment lower). They revise other economic indices like jobs (usually for the worse) a month after they release it. I've noticed that when I go to government websites, it is hard to find the latest data but you can pull up tons of Clinton era data. A while back, someone in the economic forum noted that a GAO report that stated that Reagan's proposed budgets were often times higher than the ones approved by congress was pulled from the web. It guess if you can't get good economic performance then manipulate the data.

[Virgil]

12. definitions

It used to be that they defined recessions by two consecutive quarters of lower GNP. By that definition, recessions start in quarters and not months. I guess one quarter is a dip or some thing and the second quarter marks the recession. Maybe once you have two quarters in a row with a lower GNP it goes back to the first quarter.

It is just strange now to hear it discussed in months. It all seems highly political as they have had three years to figure it out.

[thingfish]

13. Stalinesque

Horrific implications.

[bahrbearian]

14. Why didn't Greenspan drop the rates for Clinton ?

[mediaman007]

16. Who remembers that Greenspan raised the rates 5 times in 2000!

He started in May. His line was that he was worried that the economy was overheating. The reason this recession was so shallow is that it was controlled by Greenspan.

I bet that they were a little bit shocked that the jobs went away. I'm sure they expected that everyone would be back at work within 18 months.

Hope they rot in hell for this.

[otohara]

15. Recession Redux

Oh for God's sake, could the Washington Post be more obvious in their attempt to drudge up support for Bush?

How many times over the past 4 years have we heard this?

Karl Rove must have phoned the WP and threatened them.

[hatrack]

17. All kneel before the awesome job-destroying power of - CLENIS!!!!

BWAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAH!!!!!!

(Insert demonic phallic laughter with southern accent here).

[colonel odis]

18. started in november 2000?

in other words, as the election boondoggle heated up.

didn't the dow take a serious hit the day after bush was appointed?

but i agree. they are re-writing history. and i'm sure the economists who pronounced the recession to have begun under clinton will be handsomely taken care of.

[damnraddem]

19. Rewriting history again.

Taking their cues from Stalin -- err, Dubya.

[library_max]

20. Gee, I wonder what motivated the economists to consider this change?

And on a completely unrelated topic, has anyone on this board seen the movie "Runaway Jury"?

[cprise]

21. OR, Bush turned a Correction into a Recession

Let's mince words, shall we?

[varun]

22. and three years of *

...have only made it worse

:puke:

[stickdog]

23. "There seems to be some inclination to move the date."

A video of what happened to David Kelly, perhaps?

[daleo]

26. At least Winston Smith could get a job

Seems to be lots of work for "memory hole" workers in the Ministry of Truth these days.