
U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession - chollida1
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/u-s-economy-shrinks-at-4-8-pace-signaling-start-of-recession
======
nimbius
This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone
who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a
diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets
to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats
actually happening to Americans is frustrating.

My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remember those $1200
checks? Im still waiting on mine. Lenders and banks were supposed to start
going easy on loans but ive had two emails and a phone call about the loan for
my Silverado this month and wouldnt you know, the caller was excited to
mention my stimulus check.

A guy who used to be my bartender now couch surfs a few days a week at my
place while he looks for work. His mother is getting evicted from an assisted
living center in a few days and his girlfriend is sick. She 'works at the
Amazon' so she cant take any time off, but hes hoping if he gets a job at the
Flying J at the edge of town he can switch places with her and she can take a
few days off.

Shops are closing and nobody seems to care. Ive counted 2 furniture stores, a
consignment shop, a few barber shops, and half the god damn bars in this town
including one that was burned to the ground "mysteriously" over the last two
weeks. Someone spray painted a swastika on the late night pizza joint.

So yeah this is a recession but it is so much worse than a lot of people
think. No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs
asking for money for food around here. Half the country is out of work and the
best Bloomberg can come up with is "its the start of a recession dont you
know!"

~~~
aphextron
> No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking
> for money for food around here.

I think this is possibly the single biggest long term problem we're going to
face as a result of all this. Economic recessions will come and go. But
missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this
generation of kids. They will be left permanently behind without a serious
concerted effort by every school district to make up for lost time. The bar
(which is already dismally low) will _have_ to be lowered further for them to
graduate, and how/when will it ever be raised back again?

~~~
maram
> Missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for
> this generation of kids.

Which subject can they study at school that they cannot study at home?

~~~
ceejayoz
Some of them have essential workers as parents and are left unsupervised
during the day.

Some have parents ill equipped to assist them with school work those parents
never completed themselves. (Hell, I went to college, and my kids' math work
is a challenge.)

Some have no access to internet.

I saw an article the other day (I'm unfortunately having trouble Googling it
up) that said some school districts have 15-20% students they still haven't
managed to connect to teachers yet.

~~~
ahi
My son's school started remote classes this week. More than a third are
missing in action. Naturally it is the third that benefited the most from the
structure and support of school.

------
iambateman
I understand that the economy and the market are different but I'm _so_
confused. The S&P is up ~12% this month, despite massive unemployment, a
shrinking economy, and serious long-term questions about the outlook.

Is most of the 12% just market speculation that the virus issue will pass
without a long-term earnings hit?

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
3 things:

1\. People keep saying about the market being up recently, but skip the part
about it still being down about 10% since the start of the year.

2\. S&P is heavily weighted towards the strongest companies. Amazon, Apple,
Facebook, Microsoft and Google account for _20%_ of S&P market cap. Most of
those companies have been _helped_ by the pandemic, or at least not hurt
nearly as bad as smaller companies.

3\. The market is always very forward looking. It is essentially betting that
things are as bad as they'll get. I don't know if I personally necessarily
agree, but if you look at countries starting to open up it's not an
unreasonable bet.

~~~
JKCalhoun
> 1\. People keep saying about the market being up recently

So, down 10% from the previous bubble.

> 2\. S&P is heavily weighted towards the strongest companies

Good point. Dow is also up almost as much though.

> 3\. The market is always very forward looking.

I may be cynical, but I see perhaps 2 to 3 years to regain the jobs we are
losing, to see the employment rate return to earlier levels. That's years of
depressed spending, and all the other woes of society from high unemployment.

So the market is looking to, what, 2025 or something?

Sorry to pick on you, I still just don't get it.

~~~
xienze
> So the market is looking to, what, 2025 or something?

Well, another point not mentioned is, where else are you going to park your
money? Interest rates globally are basically <= 0, real estate may be a dicey
proposition for many years to come, bond yields are garbage, so... stock
market. And considering so many companies are selling at a discount
(regardless of whether or not you think that’s the case), dumping money in the
stock market is a pretty good bet right now.

~~~
sulZ
Could you share your thoughts on why real estate may be dicey in the years to
come?

~~~
mywittyname
Normal investors lack the ability to invest in real estate the same way that
wealthy investors do. It's nearly impossible for you and I to invest in a new
office complex or similar. So normal investors are stuck with the housing
(usually in a single market), existing small commercial, or REITs. Houses are
fickle and gains are mostly due to luck (or volume). In my experience, yields
on affordable commercial RE are not that far off from broader market yields.

------
IkmoIkmo
It's pretty insane that the S&P500 is higher than it was during October last
year, hell even something like 7% higher than it was last year May. There was
a post on reddit joking about a guy going into a coma last year after having
purchased a share of an S&P500 ETF, waking up today and hearing the news of a
global pandemic, people were told to quarantine at home for more than a month,
a quarter million people died, more deaths in the US than 20 years in the
Vietnam war, unemployment at 20%. But when he looks at his stock account, it's
in the green.

It feels like this is trickle-down economics again. Bail-out large companies
by issuing cheap money, stock markets stay pumped, big companies don't go
bankrupt, and hope employees don't get fired, and give each individual about 1
week of average income in the US as a little boost.

Meanwhile, 20% of people have last their jobs, the $1200 hasn't arrived or was
already spent.

~~~
andysandwich
I know this is bad math but just as an estimation:

Fed balance sheet increased about $2T, and Congress spent $2.2T so far with
more to come. That's at least 20% of GDP ($20T). Optimistic forecast is that
the economy shrinks like 30% of GDP, so that's a 10% net reduction in NOMINAL
spending/earnings.

SPX is down like 15% from it's previous high. The market seems to expect
things to return to normal next year, which is probably short-sighted, but
it's a market.

The real value of any company is down because it's producing less, but the
nominal price of the company is inflated by the government spending. So the
price of SPX is is not insane (if optimistic), given the government's actions.
No comment on whether the actions themselves are sane.

~~~
coryfklein
Exactly. In 12 months from now stocks may even be worth the roughly same
dollars they are today, but the surge in money supply means more dollars
chasing the same amount of stock anyway.

The S&P/Gold Spot charts will be the interesting ones to watch over the next
few years. While S&P shows consistent 6-7% returns historically, that's valued
against the dollar. When you chart it against gold the returns are closer to
3-4%, and there are periods where S&P goes _down_ in value against gold for
_years at a time_.

------
grey-area
NB this is for the first quarter of 2020, which had _hardly any impact from
Covid-19_ \- lockdowns mostly happened late March and the start of April.

So the second quarter will be a better reflection of the impact of shutdowns
and changes in consumer behaviour/travel, but we won't see figures for that
for a while.

Almost more worrying, 20% of the value of the S&P 500 is now concentrated in
the top 5 tech stocks, which are vulnerable in these conditions (advertising
spend is dropping dramatically and unemployment is rising).

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/13/five-biggest-stocks-
dwarfing...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/13/five-biggest-stocks-dwarfing-the-
market-at-unprecedented-level.html)

~~~
obblekk
Vulnerable, yes but the google earnings from yesterday show even in
advertising, there seems to be a temporary floor.

Entirely possible the floor is a temporary illusion and falls out over next
3mo, but the market is betting that won’t happen (I don’t know why, I’m not an
expert on ads)

~~~
grey-area
Yes, it could conceivably go either way at present, and I guess the market is
being optimistic, but most countries are locking down for months, not weeks,
and there may unfortunately be a second wave for some.

Do bear in mind those google results were for a quarter which was pretty much
untouched outside China.

------
cletus
So I still think there's a huge disconnect between market perception of what's
going on and what's actually going on. Last month I was saying "don't treat
this is a temporary dip". Many have never known anything other than a bull
market. The S&P 500 has rallied some ~20% since then (after a >30% fall mind
you) so I've had a couple of people point to this like I'm wrong.

The perception many seem to have is that everything is going to go back to
normal in a month. But some businesses and jobs are just... gone. This will
absolutely impact demand and this will be much slower to recover.

I was also surprised to learn that S&P 500 earning shave been flat since 2014
while the market has gone gangbusters. That had to come crashing back to Earth
eventually.

Also, some things like social distancing are here for the long term. I've
already gotten emails from airlines saying they won't be filling certain seats
on the plane. It's probably going to be a lot nicer to fly in coach, which I
guess many will enjoy, except it's going to have to get more expensive. Less
passengers, same plane, higher price per passenger. It's just simple math.

And who's going to be traveling anyway? Business travel (the lifeblood of most
airlines) is going to take a long time to recover.

The economy just doesn't shrink 5% and everything is back to normal the next
month. People who think so are hopelessly naive or just plain delusional. And
that GDP contraction isn't going to end here.

~~~
bugzz
> I was also surprised to learn that S&P 500 earning shave been flat since
> 2014 while the market has gone gangbusters. That had to come crashing back
> to Earth eventually

I was also surprised recently to learn how flat earnings have been. The stock
prices going gangbusters can be explained (at least partly) by earnings per
share going up due to stock buybacks. If you go look, most companies have
significantly fewer shares outstanding than they did in 2014.

------
londons_explore
Thats 4.8% annualized. The real figure is 1.17% for 3 months.

It's quite impressively small really, considering everyone is sitting at home,
and many aren't working at all.

~~~
drdec
Not when you factor in that shutdowns didn't really start until the very end
of the quarter. According to Wikipedia[1], earliest state stay-at-home order
was March 19 in California and 19 states either waited until April or never
issued a stay-at-home order.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_local_governmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_local_government_response_to_the_2020_coronavirus_pandemic)

~~~
meragrin_
It wasn't just large government shutdowns. It was local governments taking
action, people traveling less, businesses cancelling/denying trips, people
eating out less, etc. All of that started weeks before the large scale
shutdowns.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
I wish I could say I disagree, but to be perfectly honest, I was fully
expecting a recession last year. As someone may have already mentioned though,
between FED basically keeping the market afloat, stimulus working its way
through the economy and dollar still riding as a safe haven, it is not that
surprising that US economy did not crash, while a good chunk of population is
at home and out of commission.

The thing that worries me is that by attempting to prolong it as long as we
are, we are basically setting up a stage for a greater depression. We already
saw 'sell everything' panic in March.

~~~
owenwil
> The thing that worries me is that by attempting to prolong it as long as we
> are, we are basically setting up a stage for a greater depression

Killing thousands of people in the name of the economy would also set the
stage for an even longer, deeper recession...

~~~
klmadfejno
If Thanos snapped his finger and disappeared the oldest 10% of the population,
~33 million people, I'd wager that would do far less economic damage than
keeping everyone on lockdown for 365 days. The rate of the economy shrinking
is going to get worse and worse as more companies go out of business.

------
rcw4256
The actual report that the Bloomberg article keeps referring to but never
links:

[https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-1st-
qua...](https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-1st-
quarter-2020-advance-estimate)

------
nakedshorts
One year ago, if you had asked me what would happen if we printed $4T+ (that's
20% of GDP for perspective) out of thin air and injected it into the economy,
I would've told you massive hyperinflation and immediate collapse of the
dollar.

Instead, we see the US Dollar Index strengthening over the last 6 months [1].
The dominance of the United States as a global hegemonic superpower truly
cannot be overstated; I'm in awe. We can literally print trillions of dollars
worth of fiat and people around the world will give us real assets for it. Not
only that, they will give us real assets at _better_ rates than before we
ramped up the printing presses. Makes me feel pretty good about the future, to
be completely honest.

[1]
[https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy)

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
Printing money hasn't caused inflation since world war 1 and that's because
the demand for USD is virtually unlimited. As long as the money printed comes
back to the government as taxes, it's not an issue. Else it becomes a deficit.
This was already theorized by modern money mechanics and this incident is
proving it right

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I saw the 1970s. We had 14% inflation. That came from somewhere.

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
It came from oil prices which had surge in pieces

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Not from trying to pay for both the Great Society and the Vietnam War, and so
inflating the money supply?

You're mighty free with making blanket statements about what did and didn't
cause inflation. Some actual data would make your statements much more
persuasive. So far, you have given us no reason to think that you actually
know anything about the causes of inflation.

------
whatok
Nearly half (2.25%) of the decline was in healthcare. "Elective" procedures on
hold played a large role in that and conventional wisdom would suggest that
this $ would get pulled forward into Q2. I don't think it's that simple as we
have had major job losses and with healthcare being tied to employment, you
may not see the rebound in this that you would think.

------
brenden2
Good news for stocks, it means the Fed will keep printing trillions of
dollars.

~~~
arcticbull
In this market good news is neutral and bad news is good.

~~~
brenden2
There's a mistaken belief on WSB and elsewhere that bad news should make
stocks go down. Stocks go up when the market thinks they'll be more valuable
in the future, that's all there is to it. The cash will flow into the assets
that provide the greatest returns, and right now that's stocks.

Since treasuries provide almost no return, and corporate bonds are at high
risk of default, the money will move into stocks because 1) the US government
is hellbent on making sure big companies don't fail and 2) the Federal Reserve
is prepared to buy unlimited treasuries and mortgage backed securities at any
price.

~~~
rswail
If corporate bonds (debt) are at high risk of default, why would there be
investment in those same companies' equity which is even higher risk?

The fact that treasuries are providing no return tells you that most money is
invested there "safely".

The problem of course is that the USG should be making sure _small_ companies
don't fail, because that's the actual driver of the economy both for
employment and consumption.

~~~
brenden2
Bonds and stocks move differently. The market has already re-priced the stocks
of these companies to account for the risk of default on their debts.

The US government has also signaled that they will bail out these debts, so
the companies themselves (and thus, their stock) will probably be fine even if
they stop paying their debts.

Crazy times we live in.

------
xtacy
As others have noted, Q2 would likely be worse hit than Q1 since the
quarantine started later in the quarter.

FRB NY has a GDP Nowcast prediction of about -8% for Q2.

------
cik2e
This isn’t a typical recession and cannot be compared to anything in the past.
The economy has been effectively put on pause. So the dynamics of the duration
and recovery will be totally different than anything we’ve seen in the past.
I’m optimistic about a much quicker recovery than the last one.

~~~
three_seagrass
It depends on how much toxic debt accumulates during the pause - _that_ is
historically a large factor in causing recessions.

We have 20%+ of the workforce losing their income (many who are living
paycheck to paycheck) as well as many B2C businesses closing, so we're
accumulating debt that will never be paid off.

------
chvid
For comparison China’s gdp fell by 6.8% in the same period.

~~~
Retric
Considering how much earlier China’s lockdown started, that’s probably what Q2
will look like.

------
mytailorisrich
Since there are 12 months in a year, a first approximation is that each month
contributes 8.3% to the GDP.

Even in lockdown the economy is not fully stopped, though, and we can expect a
rebound after the lockdown is lifted, but the lockdown will impact more than a
single month.

All in all, I think that it is probably a reasonable ballpark figure for 2020
as whole.

------
mythrwy
Recessions are kind of like forest fires from what I see.

They are destructive, painful, cause loss of property, kill things and
generally are undesirable. But (to an extent) they are also necessary.

In the Western US fire used to be a regular occurrence. Natives would start
fires, lighting would start fires, they would burn until they ran out of fuel
and burn out. But this kept forests healthy. There used to be more bigger
stronger pine trees and less undergrowth. Somewhere along the line it was
decided fire was bad and we were going to set up fire towers and stop fires
with maximum effort.

Which was all good, until it doesn't work and we simply can't because there is
too much built up fuel and the fire rages out of control completely destroying
the forest. The previous fires, while more regular, were smaller because the
amount of fuel never accumulated to the levels it does with modern fire
suppression methods.

In this analogy we've somehow decided that we are going to stop people from
experiencing economic pain at all costs. This is humanistic. And we want
things to keep growing and we don't want to see destruction. But what happens
is a lot of trash builds up. Malinvestment. Corruption. Paper profits over
actual production. Unlimited credit spent on consumer items. No personal
savings. No problem, firemen Uncle Sam and the Federal Reserve are here to
save the day! And no one can argue with this happening because who wants to
see anyone get burned through no fault of their own?

But (just to torture the analogy) what I suspect will eventually happen is
enough malinvestment, corruption and lack of responsible behavior will build
up they won't be able to put the fire out. No one will. And it will burn the
system flat to the ground instead of just clearing out a little brush and
giving space to strong trees.

This isn't to suggest the government shouldn't help in this case. It's an
unusual situation obviously. Just allowing little fires to burn prevents big
fires later. Everything can't be free to everyone all the time. Reality
doesn't work that way unfortunately. Failing to behave ethically, productively
and responsibly, failing to save and to prepare for rough times, trying to
consume and grow unsustainable without regard to risk can't be forever
consequence free. That's not a moral statement, just a practical one.

~~~
kyuudou
Not to spoil your fine analogy, but as you probably know forestry services and
farmers have engaged in controlled burns[1] for quite some time as part of
sound wildlife conservation methods.

In keeping with your analogy, what may be wrong with current economic
governance is the lack of letting a recession run its course and, for example,
letting big banks who gambled too much fail instead of propping them up.

The revolving door between, say, Goldman Sachs and the Dept of Treasury has
something to do with this, I think.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn)

------
tempsy
The stock market is nearly flat for the year. Nasdaq is up for the year.
Incredible.

------
XIVMagnus
I thought we were already in recession, ever since the lockdown.

~~~
the-dude
A recession is a clear defined term : 2 successive quarters of a shrinking
economy.

~~~
freddie_mercury
You are wrong.

The NBER Business Cycle Dating committee explains their criteria and explains
why "the two quarter rule" the financial press always talks about is not what
they use.

[https://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html](https://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html)

"The committee's procedure for identifying turning points differs from the
two-quarter rule in a number of ways. First, we do not identify economic
activity solely with real GDP and real GDI, but use a range of other
indicators as well. Second, we place considerable emphasis on monthly
indicators in arriving at a monthly chronology. Third, we consider the depth
of the decline in economic activity. Recall that our definition includes the
phrase, "a significant decline in activity." Fourth, in examining the behavior
of domestic production, we consider not only the conventional product-side GDP
estimates, but also the conceptually equivalent income-side GDI estimates. The
differences between these two sets of estimates were particularly evident in
the recessions of 2001 and 2007-2009."

The NBER definition is what gets used in the US by every single government
department and academic.

~~~
mywittyname
> The Committee does not have a fixed definition of economic activity. It
> examines and compares the behavior of various measures of broad activity:
> real GDP measured on the product and income sides, economy-wide employment,
> and real income. The Committee also may consider indicators that do not
> cover the entire economy, such as real sales and the Federal Reserve's index
> of industrial production (IP). The Committee's use of these indicators in
> conjunction with the broad measures recognizes the issue of double-counting
> of sectors included in both those indicators and the broad measures. Still,
> a well-defined peak or trough in real sales or IP might help to determine
> the overall peak or trough dates, particularly if the economy-wide
> indicators are in conflict or do not have well-defined peaks or troughs.

The GDP approach is a lot more concrete. The NBER's approach is more nuanced
due to evaluating more factors, but is also more hand-wavy.

------
asdff
The recession started when we hit circuit breakers. This was a pullback due to
overselling, now the second leg down, exactly the same pattern as 2008.

------
Zenst
What has happened over the past few decades has been with companies:

1) A shift to JIT stock control and resource management 2) Shift towards
paying dividends over building up reserves for rainy days 3) Valuing of
companies with more weight upon public perception and perceived prospects over
tangible assets on the books.

With many other factors that all, whilst small, add up to a market with
companies driven by a way of working that is more volatile towards any unknown
changes as less prepared by design to handle any rainy days periods.

This is also not just a company thing, but a personal thing with the shift in
mentality to buy now pay later over save now, buy later. Mostly driven by low
interest rates, which have been kept low as a way to manage currency value as
a way to manage inflation. That along with any crash saw people with high
interest rates as much larger and quicker to drive an economic crash with
debts. Though mostly, to drive consumer spending so GDP looks good and the
perception helps that countries credit rating. Making them able to borrow more
for even less. Consumers with no incentive to save, buy more, borrow more,
everything looks nice.

But of course there is more to it than that, but the whole drive towards lower
interest rates has over the decades bestowed a culture more included to think
short-term and deal with the long-term later and enjoy the sun. This has
permeated in many forms and creates what I would call a false economy.

So after the moore's law of interest rates started to hit a limit as they
could not shrink any lower, they invented QE, which worked and helped avoid
reality of things catching up with the markets for many a time. But then even
that can only go so far, so the new tool - negative interest rates.

This of course, all tricks to help balance the books and keep the whole
financial system rolling ahead without it taking a reality audit and adjusting
down instead of being over valued due to perception of constant growth.

But with a big rainy day that is global, things in any market would take a
hit, how much of that depends as many companies will die, but how many of them
will be due to the way they operate and not the `market snap`(sorry Marvel,
I'm using it) we are experiencing.

If anything, whilst many jobs will be lost, more attention to local sourcing
will be given and that will create not only jobs, but more stable jobs. At
least to until the fashion of outsourcing comes back and we end up with
Detroit mark2.

Also be new opportunities/jobs - certainly be a boom for many internet
companies. Also see alas another nail in many a high street and with that,
things will change, how much of that does transpire is unsure for certain. But
certainly see more things local produced instead of imported, with that
production has been slowly clustering globally and in some area's has become
centered. So insourcing may well become a word used more than outsourcing when
it comes to production and materials resources.

About the only thing I do know for sure, even after this - people will use
more soap than before.

------
ur-whale
[http://archive.is/rwqjJ](http://archive.is/rwqjJ)

------
aaron695
Why are we continually saying Recession when we know it will be a Depression?

~~~
dylkil
we dont know that

~~~
aaron695
Until everyone in the supply chain from mining to customers have free
movement, which means 80% or more of the world have some sort of immunity
(Either from opening everything up or vaccines) our economy will be depressed.

This will be many many quarters from now.

Even if today China said don't care that would be 6 months at least. And they
are only part of the supply chain.

What don't we know?

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
The supply chain already has free movement. Every country's border closures
have exempted international trade, and almost all stay-at-home orders consider
mining and such to be essential businesses.

~~~
aaron695
There are ~193 countries in the world. Its not just yours that matters.

How many mines are run by under 10 people. The answer is a lot, there are 50
million artisanal miners globally, 90% of the mining workforce.

South Africa shut down industrial mining for a period and is still not allowed
to fully ramp up.

Is oil all ok as it shuts down wells it can't just reopen?

Exploration has been shut down across the board.

No, mining is not ok.

And its only a small part of the supply chain I mentioned. It's just one bit
that will not be fully operational within 6 months.

------
jb775
Is it outrageous to say we need to end this quarantine right now? At this
point, the cure is worse than the disease.

~~~
iffybookmark
Isn't covid-19 the #1 cause of death in NYC right now? And not, like,
starvation?

Saying the cure is worse than the disease shows a frightening lack of both
empathy and objective reasoning. I don't want to construct a strawman, but I
worry that what "reopen" people are really saying is "I don't care if X% of
the US population dies - as long as I'm not one of them - if it means I can
try to go back to normal."

And try is the key word there. I would argue the main thing keeping people at
home is not stay-at-home orders, but fear. Correctly-calibrated, sensible fear
of getting a disease that has better odds of killing you than lots of other
sources of risk in modern life.

~~~
jb775
I think it's frightening that people like you are missing the bigger point
here: X% of the population was going to die anyways, and these numbers are
getting skewed out of proportion. Triggering a major recession will cause more
deaths and despair over the long term. Start thinking for yourselves rather
than believing everything you hear.

Hospitals are now FINANCIALLY INCENTIVIZED to lump as many patients as
possible into the "Covid" column. Look at the stats on the sudden drop in
historical "Other" column deaths in comparison to the "Covid" column (for this
year)...they basically align perfectly....which tells you that hospitals are
flagging people who were going to die anyways as "Covid" related.

~~~
esoterica
> Look at the stats on the sudden drop in historical "Other" column deaths in
> comparison to the "Covid" column (for this year)...they basically align
> perfectly.

There is no drop in "other" column deaths. The excess all-cause mortality rate
is actually substantially higher than the number of diagnosed Covid deaths
[1].

There are certain commenters on various social media sites posting CDC all-
cause mortality charts showing a "drop" in recent all-cause deaths, except
that's purely an artifact of the reporting lag (deaths take a couple weeks to
show up in the stats so if you try to look up the number of deaths that
happened within the past 1-2 weeks you will get an undercount). It sounds like
you have been duped by one of those people.

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronaviru...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronavirus-
death-toll-total.html)

------
ta1234567890
"Start of a recession"?

We've been in a recession for a while now, and a global one too. The IMF and
other such organizations have been saying it for over a month now. Why has the
US been trying to deny it for so long?

~~~
eightysixfour
Recession is a semi-technical term that is often defined as a fall in GDP for
two successive quarters.

~~~
ashtonkem
That’s why there’s a lot of debate about whether this is a depression or a
recession, we haven’t had enough time to decide.

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cs702
Given that that Jan and Feb seemed largely fine, the rate of decline in March
was probably around 3x the quarter's headline figure -- call it -15%, give or
take.

April was much worse, without a doubt. Anything between a -25% and -50% GDP
decline seems possible for April.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Annualized numbers can always be a bit misleading, but applying them to
individual months starts to get silly. What's the annualized GDP decline of
weekends?

~~~
cs702
Of course. My point is that the figure for the quarter _understates_ the
economic shock in March.

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lmilcin
Nah, it signals exactly nothing.

If there was no Coronavirus, then maybe.

With Coronavirus it is just as likely that the economy is going to rebound
once the worst of the virus passes. People stopped buying stuff but rest
assured, they will make up for it when they finally can.

~~~
Ensorceled
A LOT of people lost jobs, a lot of business will be bankrupt.

When things recover, a lot of people will be sinking money into late rent
payments and credit card bills, not spending.

A lot of people cleared off their credit cards of anything not critical. Will
I go back to the gym? Maybe. Will I turn back on Amazon Prime or half the
other subscriptions I cancelled? Nope. Will I eat out as much now that I've
had a month and a half of eating healthy at home. Probably not.

~~~
valachio
I wish I ate healthier during this period of time... Unfortunately I'm finding
it impossible to order a grocery delivery right now (I use Walmart). So I just
end up ordering Uber Eats twice a day.

I cringe when I think about how much money I'm spending on food and how
unhealthy I'm eating. But I can't stop, I'm addicted to food delivery wtf.

