Reported today on NPR

Apparently, the recession is drawing to a close and will be over sometime this summer. At least that's what the folks at the Economic Cycles Research Institute say, and they've been pretty dead on so far.

"The reason we're so convinced — and we are quite convinced — that the recession is drawing to a close is because of leading indicators," Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at the institute, tells NPR's Guy Raz.

Different sequences of indicators point to different types of events. Achuthan says ...indicators are showing it is likely that there will be a recovery soon.

"The key is that there is no one piece that we're hanging our hat on. It is a pervasive upturn in these leading indicators, and that is the hallmark of something that is going to persist for a few quarters, a year at least," Achuthan says. "And it is going to be pronounced."

In the time that these indicators have been in existence, they have not made a mistake on a recession or a recovery poll, he says.

But "the end of the recession does not mean an immediate turn to prosperity," he says. "It means that the economy has stopped shrinking and has begun to grow."

He added, "We've lost 7 million jobs. It's going to take years to get those jobs back."


I hope he's right because frankly, this recession is starting to get to me. I sympathise deeply with people's concerns but most of the people I deal with daily are just in a bad mood all the damn time.

As a job seeker, I certainly hope so. The frustrating part is that job recovery usually trails everything else.

True.

I found this fascinating as well. I agree that even when the recession is "over" it'll be years until the economy is "healthy" again and we may need to readjust our expectations to what exactly a healthy economy means on a personal level.

I agree. I also think that it would be good to adjust our national expectations of what a healthy economy looks like too. I feel that part of how we got here in the first place was a belief in the ability of money managers to spin straw into gold indefinitely.

I too hope this prediction is true. On a personal note, I'm glad that my company has recently ended their hiring freeze. As the person who accepted applications, it was part of my job to tell applicants that we weren't hiring. Very discouraging for all involved...

Randomanthony wrote: "I found this fascinating as well. I agree that even when the recession is "over" it'll be years until the economy is "healthy" again and we may need to readjust our expectations to what exactly a ..."

It hasn't been a "healthy" economy for decades. Or at least it's been "healthy" in the same way that someone with undiagnosed diabetes is "healthy."

We struck the first blow to our economic health when we started basing the economy on consumption. This started sometime during the Great Depression, when the spending of money began to be represented as a patriotic act which would help pull our country out of its hole. After WW II, encouragement to buy consumer goods became even more aggressive. Unlike Europe and Japan, the war left us with a cornucopian (sp?) economy; we had a WHACK of fully-functioning factories all set to produce cars, TVs, refrigerators, a shiny new interstate highway system to get stuff around... we just lacked enough population to buy all the stuff we could make. Suddenly citizens were encouraged to "buy now, pay later" rather than save up for for things they needed or wanted. "A car in every garage" became "TWO cars in every garage," and so on....

Another major blow to our long-term economic health came in the mid-80s, when deregulation was suddenly considered, like consumerism, to be "pro-American." As a result of all the regulations we've dropped, we now have a positively barbaric corporate world -- and barbarians, I will gently remind you, have never been known for their insistence on acting for the common good. A couple of good books on the structure of our economy are Fiasco by Frank Partnoy and The Web of Debt by Ellen Hodgson Brown. People need to have a healthier distrust of our corporations than they currently do.

We may enjoy an upswing in a year or so, but unless the economy is made truly healthy, I can't see how it can possibly last, and in fact fully expect it to get worse.

Isn't that the point of the conversations about sustainability though? The begininngs of a discussion about basing an economy on something other than more, more, better, better, bigger, bigger?

That is my dearest hope, certainly. I still have faith in this administration, even though it HASN'T fixed everything yet, ha! Seriously, I believe the ideas of this administration are sound and that their intent is good. I also recognize the lobbying might of our corporations. The appointment of the Monsanto guy to the FDA, which you pointed out elsewhere, is sobering. Bottom line, I am watching events unfold with interest....

I'm not too sure that consumerism is a current trend (as in, not ancient). A big problem for those in charge, resulting in lots and lots of minute, stinky laws, was the desire of the common folks to dress in the manner of their "social betters"; this resulted in strict sumptuary laws guiding the dress of all classes...during medieval times. Surely that was early consumerism/consumption? Not saying this is a good thing, just saying that it may predate our current era of woe.

Sumptuary laws are not really evidence of consumerism I don't think. I guess it depends on how you define consumerism. The middle class merchants who wanted to buy silk and velvet had the money to pay for the goods and the goods were worth having. That's significantly different - at least in my opinion- from running up credit card bills to buy happy meals that don't actually contain food, and book cases made out of sawdust and glue.

Not that past eras didn't have their own gimcrackery junk for sale, not that past eras didn't use resources irresponsibly and waste and pollute and behave foolishly. I certainly don't think the answers are in the past. The past is how we got here so clearly it had a few significant flaws in its methods.

Bun I couldn't agree with that more. But, I'm in total confusion as to where we go, in a sane and sensible way, from here to more individual responsibility and a clearer policy on improving all these areas. These are parlous times, I think, and it's going to take some brave and intelligent folks to get things moving in a constructive way. What I would like us to do is to avoid as many of the mistakes of the past as we can.

My point exactly. I'd like to see the public call for reinstatement of certain extremely important regulations -- the Glass Steagall Act comes to mind, as just one example.

I find it encouraging that at least I'm hearing different kinds of conversations. I remember having really really frustrating circular arguments thirty years ago with friends to whom planned obsolescence and ever increasing GNP and constant expansion of markets and suchlike notions were practically articles of faith.

These days I am at least having conversations with people who are more open to questioning and considering. Does it make sense that a natural disaster is an economic plus under our present model because it stimulates demand for goods and services? Could that not be a sign that there is something wrong with the model? That to me is an interesting and germane question and at least I encounter more people now who are willing to entertain those kinds of inquiries.

Or maybe I'm just hanging out with more interesting people these days.

I'm glad to hear you've been observing new thinking on these matters. I haven't really, but then I currently live in a somewhat anti-intellectual suburban area. I'd love to know if other people here are having Bun's experience or mine?

I'm definitely enjoying the more open national conversations generally. It's like a cool, clean rain.

Most of the interesting conversations I'm having are with people in their twenties. But then the arguments I was having thirty years ago were with people in their twenties too. So maybe a generational shift in attitude. Or like I say, maybe I'm just hanging out with different people these days.

Okay, just had this sent to me today:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27239479

It gives all the reasons I don't think the recession will end soon. Plus a little bonus info.

Interesting Doni. Thanks.