The R-word: Is this what a recession feels like?

The smartest insight and analysis, from all perspectives, rounded up from around the web:

Let's call it what it is, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial: The U.S. is in a recession. Everyone can see this¸ except President Biden and the Democrats, who want "to pretend the

bad news isn't happening." But the numbers don't lie: Last week's GDP data showed that the economy contracted by 0.9 percent in the second quarter, following a 1.6 percent decline in the

first three months of the year. Two quarters of the economy shrinking is the common definition of a recession, and what Americans see around them bears this out. Inflation is eating into

wages and has caused consumer spending to slip "to its slowest rate since the pandemic." Everywhere, "businesses are bracing for cooling demand." Yet Biden dismisses the data as "chatter"

from pundits and is determined to claim that the last quarter showed "signs of economic progress.'" That's out of touch. The president "inherited a growing economy primed to roar back from

the pandemic, and in barely a year and a half he has dragged America back to the 1970s."

Does it really look to you like the U.S. is in a prolonged economic slump? asked Allan Sloan in The Washington Post. "It doesn't look like that to me." Unemployment is still at 3.6 percent,

wages are rising, and, at least in the crucial area of gas prices, inflation has started to fall. It's not just Biden who doesn't think we are in a recession. "The official arbiter of when

recessions begin and end is the Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is part of the National Bureau of Economic Research." They have not made a judgment yet, and may take into 2023 to do

so. But they've never bought the "six months of declining real GDP" rule of thumb that the press often repeats. In fact, the economist who has leads the eight-member committee calls that

measure "irrelevant."

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