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Comment by satvikpendem | Hacker News Reader

One thing we must make clear is, is there actually a recession? Many companies are firing, but they've fired much fewer than they've hired in the past few years. Many companies are still hiring now. I don't think there is a recession, much as people might be scared that there is.

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If all the CEOs believe there will be a recession, and the Federal Reserve has stated that unemployment is one of their goals, it's hard to see how we're not going to have a recession that gets willed in to existence.

Traditionally, even when unemployment was high, tech wasn’t affected a lot.

All the CEOs? I highly doubt that. CEOs might also say whatever is convenient to their hiring practices, it doesn't mean anything about a recession.

"Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board, told CNBC this week that 98% of the CEOs it surveyed are preparing for a recession, up from 95% earlier this year. She explained that Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes are a major factor."

Slightly hyperbolic, but only slightly.

“Duffman says a lot of things!”

Unemployment is the lowest it has been since the fifties. So it has to increase a lot before it gets to levels traditionally associated with recessions.

Unemployment numbers don’t include people who are not of retired age but have chosen to stop looking for work

The share of prime working aged men who aren’t working and not looking for work is historically high.

> The share of prime working aged men who aren’t working and not looking for work is historically high.

It will also remain high due to structural socioeconomics, somewhat similar to Japan’s Hikikomori.

The share of men under 50 in the work force is higher now than it was pre pandemic.

No it’s not. Overall labor force participation rate is still under pre pandemic levels. Where did you get that?

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

I got it from the stlouisfed too, but can't find it now. Your link certainly doesn't disprove my assertion, since yours is for all Americans, not the under 50's.

People being scared that there's a recession is what causes the recession

What evidence would falsify that hypothesis?

To me it seems like a lot of smoke, but not much of a fire, and I believe it's instigated by the fed, who want inflation down, and are wrongheadedly trying to induce a recession to do so; they basically said so directly.

There is no recession in the US, yet. Even though people have been pretending for more than a year that there is one.

Q1 and Q2 Real GDP growth was negative, so the recession technically already happened.

Unless we want to restart the "NBER decides what a recession is" gaslighting.

What's your source for the Real GDP numbers?

Employment is doing very well, though.

https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product

Thanks. In the meantime, I also found https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/gdpc1

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