Hey, Townhall VIP subscribers! Larry O'Connor here live in the Townhall offices. This is the first of maybe several videos from me here on the VIP portion of our site called "And Another Thing" because I have a lot on my mind, and I can't always get it off my mind in a column. So, I'm going to keep doing these until they tell me to stop. Let's start today with a definition, okay? I pulled up the Oxford definition of the word "recession."
Oxford definition. Pulled it off the Google just a few moments ago: "a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced." See, you get it? Recession. Now, here's the key part of the definition: "generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters." Listen, I don't have an economics degree, but I know this. They've been talking about it my entire adult life. Any time you have a shrinkage, "negative growth" they call it (boy, that's an economic term, isn't it?), two quarters back-to-back of your GDP, you're in a recession.
You know how I know this? Because whenever a Republican is president, and there are two quarters back-to-back of negative growth in the GDP, everybody screams about the horrible recession.
We're about to find out this Thursday if we've got a second consecutive quarter of negative growth in GDP. The first quarter...in the toilet, right? Now, the second quarter is April, May and June. And this Thursday, end of July, we'll have the final numbers on the GDP.
Fox News correspondent at the White House Jacqui Heinrich tweeted, "Bracing for impact: Even if Thursday's GDP report shows a second consecutive quarter of negative growth, you won't hear the Biden admin using the R-word. The Council of Economic Advisers is redefining what a recession is..."
See, there you go. You're Joe Biden, you're Nancy Pelosi, you're Chuck Schumer, the economy's in the toilet, unemployment sucks, there's no baby formula on the shelves, you have supply chain shortages, you have gas prices sky high, you have the horrible pull out of Afghanistan with the death of 13 servicemembers that shouldn't have happened, you have a war in Ukraine and no one knows what the hell the administration's doing about that, you have bad news after bad news after bad news, so what do you do? You're about to be in a recession, so you redefine the word "recession."
This is straight from the White House website, "What is a recession?" they ask. Well, I just told you what a recession is. Here's the definition again: "a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters." But the White House continues, "While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle." You see how they do this? It's creative, isn't it? Boy, it's good to be a Democrat.
"Instead, both official determinations of recessions and economists' assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data," the White House states. Ah, we need to get holistic when we look at the data! Oh, yeah, you can't afford anything because you barely got a 2% raise last year and the cost of living is actually up over 9.5%, it costs you $6 per gallon to get anywhere, but no, no, no, you're not being holistic about this. You have to be more holistic.
"Based on these data," the White House says, "it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession." So they're already ready for it.
This Thursday, you'll see right here at Townhall, we'll have all the stories when the economic data hits, and we'll let you know what the second quarter looks like, and I'm pretty sure we're going to confirm what we already know, that we're in the middle of a recession. But as far as the White House is concerned, all they have to do is redefine the word and then see? We're not in a recession anymore. And then Don Lemon will do a show Thursday night, singing happy days are here again, and everything's great with the economy because we're the furthest thing from a recession because it's been redefined.
But let me remind you again one more time what the actual definition of a recession is, I'm pulling it up here on Google, it's right there the Oxford...oh, they've updated it...I'm so sorry they've updated it. They've already updated the definition of a recession. Apparently, a recession is generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters when there's anything but a Democrat in the White House.
