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Finding the Root Cause of Recessions
Finding the Root Cause of Recessions
Photographer: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
The U.S. managed to avoid recession after the financial crisis, but Japan has succumbed to three contractions since 2009. Economic volatility is a key reason for this divergence, and that tells us a great deal about the risk of future U.S. recessions.
During this decade, both the U.S. and Japan have experienced multiple growth rate cycles, which consist of alternating periods of rising and falling economic growth. Japan had four growth rate cycle (GRC) downturns, three of which turned into recessions; the U.S. experienced three GRC downturns, none of which were recessionary. Why not?
In 2011, a Federal Reserve paper estimated the U.S. economy’s “stall speed,” below which it would plunge into a recession. U.S. growth promptly dropped below that threshold, yet no recession followed. So the concept — which seemed to have worked quite well since the 1950s — broke down and dropped out of the discourse.
Specifically, that estimate of the economy’s stall speed was 2 percent two-quarter annualized growth in real gross domestic income. In theory, the GDI is equal to real GDP, but is measured differently. While GDP adds up what the economy produces, such as goods and services, GDI sums up incomes, including wages, profits and taxes. The chart shows two-quarter annualized growth in real GDP for Japan (red line) and the U.S. (blue line), along with the 2 percent stall speed estimate
Most believe recessions are caused by shocks that then propagate through the economy. In contrast, our research shows that endogenous cyclical forces periodically open up windows of vulnerability for the economy, and that, once it is cyclically vulnerable, almost any exogenous shock can easily tip it into recession. Because such shocks tend to arrive sooner or later, an economy’s entry into a susceptible state is almost always followed by recession.
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2016 Economic Predictions: Year of the Epocalypse
2016 Economic Predictions: Year of the Epocalypse
An economic apocalypse upon us. My 2016 economic predictions provide the full explanation as to why 2016 will be the year of the Epocalypse — a word that encompasses the roots “economic, epoch, collapse” and “apocalypse.” I needed a word big enough to describe all that is about to befall the world in 2016. When you see the towering forces that are prevailing against failing global economic architecture and the pit of debt beneath that structure, as laid out here, I think you’ll recognize that the Epocalypse is here, and it is everywhere. The Great Collapse has already begun.
What follows are the megatrends that will increasingly gang up in the first part of 2016 to stomp the deeply flawed global economy down into its own hole of debt. The economic collapse that is already developing includes the US economy and the US stock market that is now collapsing from the external forces and internal vacuum that I’ve been writing about for a few years here.
Nations deep in the hole
Fire in the hole. Brazil is already burning and has been declared by Bank of America and others to be in a recession deeper than the Great Depression — its worst since 1901. Brazil is struggling to combat runaway inflation at the same time. That’s is an impossible combination to battle.
It ain’t Zimbabwe yet, but it’s looking like a place where Mugabe might want to run for president. Only a couple of years ago, Brazil was a nation of rising glory — the shining light of South America, one of the brightest of emerging markets. Now, as the US starts raising interest, its problems will grow worse as its debt, in a time of deep national crisis, is made impossible to manage.
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