The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) stands as the official arbiter of U.S. business cycles, holding the weighty responsibility of declaring recessions – a term that sends shivers down spines and impacts markets from Wall Street to your local grocery store. Founded in 1920 by a group of prominent economists, the NBER emerged from a post-World War I desire for deeper understanding of economic fluctuations. However, its role as recession referee wasn't preordained. Initially focused on research and data analysis, the NBER gradually gained wider recognition for its objective and meticulous approach to economic cycles. By the 1950s, its recession pronouncements carried increasing weight, becoming the unofficial benchmark for government policy and media narratives. This de facto authority solidified by the 1980s. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), specifically its Business Cycle Dating Committee, is responsible for officially declaring recessions in the United States. In their mumbo-jumbo, the men and women of the NBER emphasize that a recession must be a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts for more than a few months. It's important to note that the NBER typically waits until well after a recession has begun before officially declaring it. In other words, by the time recessions are over, the NBER declare that we have recently lived through one Of course, what the NBER calls a "recession" really is just a significant decline in the true productive employment as government employment in the main is make-work, akin to high-paid welfare. That is the proper nuance description of it. Lack of transparency means the members of the NBER do not wish 1) to be out of status, prestige 2) the ordinary man to know when recessions are underway. My formula perfectly matches their declarations, hence it is predictive of what they will call recessions anyway. Further, my formula better captures the truth of more recent times when the NBER called too soon the end of recessions owing to political pressure, especially after the dot com bubble burst and 9/11. What they, the NBER, call "recessions" in effect are what the layman cares about, employment, if he is not a government worker. But the truth is, recession mostly is empty word. The USA economy still experiences depressions and the trade cycle has never gone away. Recession is the chosen word to give the air that central bankers have their hands on the economy controlling it so that no one suffers.
I know better how to declare recessions than the NBER.
This simple formula accurately pulls back the curtain on the NBER and shows when recessions happen. Also, it shows the NBER prematurely declared recessions over in 1991 and 2002.
The NBER method is not transparent. They simply do not lay down their cards on the table, ever. Now, you need not rely upon them. Instead, use my formula.
