What Is A Recession?

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What Is A Recession?

A look at the meaning of five words, bookended by two passages from Animal Farm.

Nate Clemons

Jul 28, 2022

None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter A. It was also found that the stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart. After much thought Snowball declared that the Seven Commandments could in effect be reduced to a single maxim, namely: "Four legs good, two legs bad.” This, he said, contained the essential principle of Animalism. Whoever had thoroughly grasped it would be safe from human influences. The birds at first objected, since it seemed to them that they also had two legs, but Snowball proved to them that this was not so.

"A bird's wing, comrades,” he said, "is an organ of propulsion and not of manipulation. It should therefore be regarded as a leg. The distinguishing mark of man is the HAND, the instrument with which he does all his mischief.”

The birds did not understand Snowball's long words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart. FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD, was inscribed on the end wall of the barn, above the Seven Commandments and in bigger letters. When they had once got it by heart, the sheep developed a great liking for this maxim, and often as they lay in the field they would all start bleating "Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!” and keep it up for hours on end, never growing tired of it.

- George Orwell, Animal Farm

GDP decreased in the second quarter of 2022, following a decrease in the first quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In anticipation of the release of these negative numbers, the White House preemptively attempted to redefine a recession in a blog post last week. Advisors and secretaries were also sent out to scuttle what has long been the shorthand definition of a recession, namely, two consecutive quarters of contracting GDP.

If we are in a recession, then the White House’s response will be far better if they aren’t caught wrong footed. After all, there isn’t one economy for democrats and one for republicans. What happens next will affect all Americans.

JFK rightly said that a rising tide lifts all boats, but it is also true that a receding tide can ground just as many.

Recession: In 1974, economist Julius Shiskin pointed out that while everyone agreed the U.S. was in one, no one agreed how to define it. He laid out three criteria for determining a recession, one of which stuck and has proven to be an accurate litmus test: “declines in real G.N.P. for 2 consecutive quarters.”

To give the devil his due, the U.S. economy is an elaborate, sophisticated labyrinth that is not easily captured by looking at GDP alone and there are other factors that contribute to a recession. Also, the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private academic group, is typically acknowledged as the official arbiter of when a recession is occurring.

However, the NBER defines recessions retroactively after they have already started. Also, according to George Washington University professor Tara Sinclair, there is only one instance where two consecutive quarters of negative GDP did not signal a recession and that was in 1947.

The White House and legacy media point to job growth and consumer spending as buffers that will prevent a recession. But, a recent CNN poll showed that Americans do not share that rosy outlook with 7 out of 10 disapproving of President Biden’s handling of the economy. Other factors, like the Fed hiking borrowing costs, housing being inaccessible to millions, a historically wide wealth gap, and inflation that continues at four-decade highs, are cause for concern.

Inflation: Why is inflation at 9.1% when fuel oil has increased 98.5%, gasoline has increased 59.9%, food at home has increased 12.2%, and new vehicles have increased 11.4% over the same time period?

Consumer Price Index inflation is calculated by The Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS gathers data from 12,000 consumers around the U.S. who maintain annual diaries of their purchases. This data is combined with surveying approximately 24,000 additional consumers. BLS calculates CPI inflation by analyzing this data.

This complex capture of data to calculate CPI is both a worthy and difficult endeavor.

There are 7,776 item area combinations that compose the CPI. That is incredible.

Annual Rate of inflation 1969-current, the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI, courtesy of Ian Webster, Official Data Foundation.

According to BLS, in the 1930’s food and clothing together accounted for nearly half of the weight of the index, compared with less than a fifth today. Consumers were not spending money on screens and gasoline in the 1930’s. BLS’s attempt to capture the changing nature of spending habits is a good thing.

This has led BLS to make “revisions” and “improvements” including six “comprehensive revisions” to the Consumer Price Index. The fifth comprehensive revision introduced new “weights” in 1986 in response to soaring inflation in the previous decade. According to BLS, “With that revision, services (including rent) surpassed commodities in the marketplace; services now account for more than 60 percent of the weight of the CPI.”

Prices that have risen the most have not caused the CPI to rise at the same rate. When the economy and inflation are relatively stable, as has been the case since the '80’s, the index’s wide distribution, representing various goods and services, is an asset. Allowing investors to make informed predictions, businesses to plan sustainable growth, and consumers to save and spend with security.

However, in a period of high inflation and instability, the numbers that have risen the most are watered down by factoring in the inflation of other items that are less volatile, but also less essential. Consumers can cut back on many of the services and items in the index, but cannot do without food and energy.

In short, the wide distribution of the index serves to dilute price increases for indispensable items. A CPI of essential goods would better reflect reality for many Americans.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been used as a scape goat for runaway inflation, but the numbers really started to climb in April of 2021, in large part due to government spending as a response to the novel coronavirus. This began under the previous administration and continues under the current. Last year’s $1.2 Trillion infrastructure bill did not help matters.

Annual Inflation Rates by Month and Year, courtesy U.S. Inflation Calculator.

Job Growth: After 100 days in office, President Biden said, “We've created more than 1.5 million jobs.”

The BBC pointed out that more than 22 million jobs were lost in two months in 2020. Big box stores like Home Depot were allowed to stay open, while small businesses, like Lincoln Hardware in my neighborhood, were shuttered.

The labor force participation rate remains 1.2 percentage points below February 2020, which equals 896,000 fewer Americans working or looking for work as compared to before the response to covid.

Letting businesses reopen is not job growth or job creation. Job growth and inflation data are only useful insofar as the metrics reflect reality.

The administration put all their pandemic-fighting-eggs in one basket. Their plan for dealing with the coronavirus was succinctly expressed by soon to be U.S. Chief Medical Advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, in November 2020, "Certainly it's not going to be a pandemic for a lot longer because I believe the vaccines are going to turn that around.”

And honestly, I don’t blame anyone who believed him. Until that point, vaccines were very effective and doctors were very respected.

In their book A Hunter-Gather’s Guide to the 21st Century, Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, both PhDs in Biology, list the major successes of Western medicine as, “surgery, antibiotics, and vaccines.” These stars shining in the west have changed the world, alleviated suffering, and saved lives.

But the fault, dear reader, was not in our stars, but in ourselves, for these were vaccinations in name only.

Vaccination: In July 2021 at a CNN town hall, President Biden said, “You're not going to get covid if you have these vaccinations.”

In July 2022, in a video posted to his Twitter account, President Biden said, “This morning I tested positive for COVID. But I’ve been double vaccinated, double boosted.”

First, you can’t be double vaccinated, just like you can’t be double pregnant. You either are, or you aren’t. Second, covid shots, unlike prior treatments defined as vaccinations, do not prevent infection or transmission, as admitted by the director of the CDC in August, 2021.

The CDC’s definition of vaccination has changed to allow these shots to be called such.

Prior to 2015, the CDC’s definition of vaccination was, “Injection of a killed or weakened infectious organism in order to prevent the disease.” (Emphasis added in all three).

From 2015-2021, the definition was, “The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.”

“To produce immunity to a specific disease,” is more precise than “to prevent the disease,” but essentially these definitions serve the same purpose. Not so for the definition that was adopted in September 2021.

“The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease.”

Protection is not prevention and it is certainly not immunity.

Restrictions on freedom of movement, recreation, healthcare, and employment have been based on the former definition of what vaccination is capable of accomplishing. The effects of these restrictions have outlasted the efficacy of the “vaccines” themselves.

Most Americans can be forgiven for not knowing that the definition of vaccination had been manipulated, but a much more fundamental pillar of biology is being redefined and it is incumbent upon us to take notice.

At her Senate confirmation hearing, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked if she could provide a definition for the word woman. She replied, “No. I can’t. Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.”

Asking a Supreme Court nominee to define a word, that until very recently had a self-evident meaning, is only surpassed in absurdity by the nominee’s inability to do so. It may portend asininity that has spread beyond the circus that can be Congress into wider society.

Woman: Between 2009/10 and 2017/18, there was a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment in the U.K. Drug treatment was offered to girls as young as 10, but the youngest referred was four years old.

In her book, Irreversible Damage, investigative journalist Abigail Shrier describes this huge increase as a “social contagion” infecting groups of teen girls the same way that bulimia, copy-cat suicides, cutting, and other forms of self-harm have in the past.

An internet search of, can men get pregnant, or, can men menstruate, returns results of straight faced pundits, politicians, and news sites stating that, yes, we can. The rules package for the 117th Congress, passed January 4th, 2021, adopted gender neutral language. Words like, “father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, aunt, and uncle,” were struck, and words like, “parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling,” were inserted instead. Our cellphones now have emojis of pregnant men on them.

Pregnant man emoji, released September 14th 2021, Emoji Version 14.0, next to pregnant person emoji.

What is a woman? An adult human female.

Why does it matter? The west is built on words. They are what you are holding in the palm of your hands right now. We put them on paper and sign our names and it gives us a place to live, land to grow food on, the right to marry. We use words to write laws and establish peace. They transcend death, permitting the wishes of the departed to be fulfilled. They allow us to commune with those who came before and those we will never meet.

Written words are thoughts organized for a purpose. What words mean matters.

It is not inconsequential that the most referenced text in Western civilization calls God the Logos.

Fifty-six men pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, by signing their names to words on parchment, and created a new nation.

Those who do not realize that half the sky is held up by women will be surprised when women are dispensed with and it all comes crashing down on them. Pretending that we don’t know what women are, or worse, thinking that it doesn’t matter, will lead to ramifications far worse than the definitional deceit of vaccination, job growth, inflation, or even recession.

Knocking down a few walls to improve the floor plan is all well and good, unless they are load-bearing.

And finally there was a tremendous baying of dogs and a shrill crowing from the black cockerel, and out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.

He carried a whip in his trotter.

There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as though the world had turned upside-down. Then there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of everything-in spite of their terror of the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticising, no matter what happened-they might have uttered some word of protest. But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of-

"Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!"

It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.

Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written. For a minute or two they stood gazing at the tatted wall with its white lettering.

"My sight is failing," she said finally. "Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?"

For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

-George Orwell, Animal Farm