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I mean, if you're running a burger joint and fewer people are coming in to buy burgers, why would you continue to order the same amount of beef each week?

I get that the real world more complicated than this, as forecasting can be done for months out, but businesses can't magically fix the economy by continuing to spend the way they have been because it isn't sustainable.

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The problem being pointed out is that fewer people aren't coming in to buy burgers yet, but because the store managers heard rumors of a recession, they preemptively fire employees and order less meat, which puts fewer dollars in their employees pockets, which means less spending power per person on average which means people actually do spend less, even though there wasn't actually anything wrong in the first place.

Based on what I know about American consumer spending habits, people basically spend whenever they can (which is why consumer debt is so high).

It's when they "physically" can't spend that it starts to slow down (slowing income, access to credit).

That's exactly right. Recessions are not behavioral patterns. They happen when borrowers can no longer borrow more to pay the interest on their existing debts.

Yes, that's the traditional understanding. We're talking about something new, something possibly different.

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