Did the Great Recession end, or did it not? And, if not, are we now headed for a double dip?

The other day on WhatTheyThink.com, Dr. Joe Webb put forth some very interesting commentary and information on the U.S. economy and included excellent charts showing ups and downs in GDP. One of the people who made a comment included a link to another article, and I found that one to be extremely interesting.

After adjustments, it looks like we never came out of the Great Recession, after all. I keep thinking about that old saying, “if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, well, maybe it really is a duck! And, if we never came out of the recession, then a dip would be a double dip. I was informed that, if the economy came out of a recession, another following recession can’t be called a double dip. I guess the REAL question is, did the Great Recession end, or did it not end. Hard to believe anyone’s numbers nowadays. Like Lewis Black might put it, “let’s just make up the numbers.”

Here are the two articles I mentioned, the first one is from Dr. Joe Webb, and the second one is from Tyler Durden.

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GDP Data Revisions Show Steeper Recession and Unrecovered Economy

By Dr. Joe Webb on August 1st, 2011

First two paragraphs of the article:

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for the second quarter, and it disappointed economists and analysts with its small +1.3% annual growth rate. The real surprises, however, were in the details of five years of revisions, especially that made of the first quarter of 2011. The new data for Q1-2011 was revised down, significantly, from the initial +1.9% to only +0.4%.

There revisions also showed that the recession was deeper than originally reported. The original data showed that the economy surpassed the level of Q4-2007, when the recession started, in Q4-2010. These new data showed that the economy had still not reached those levels.

You can read the complete article at this Internet address:

http://tinyurl.com/3psxuo7

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Guest Post: Q2 GDP - The Numbers Don't Add Up

By Tyler Durden

Created 07/30/2011 - 12:43

Couple of snips from this article

Comments at the end of the article; "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."

Don't be fooled by the state of the US economy. In reality we never left recession but regardless we are clearly back and the data points to anything but a soft patch. This report and the Q1 revision was truly horrible. In my view it shows the US far more vulnerable to a prolonged period of contraction versus a Japanese style period of rolling recessions.

You can read the complete article at this Internet address:

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/435933