According to a recent report from AP News, a recession began in the US in February, just before the virus became a major problem and not the cause, but merely exaggerating what was already in progress.
he U.S. economy entered a recession in February as the coronavirus struck the nation, a group of economists declared Monday, ending the longest expansion on record.
The economists said that employment, income and spending peaked in February and then fell sharply afterward as the viral outbreak shut down businesses across the country, marking the start of the downturn after nearly 11 full years of economic growth.
A committee within the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private nonprofit group, determines when recessions begin and end. It broadly defines a recession as “a decline in economic activity that lasts more than a few months.”
For that reason, the NBER typically waits longer before making a determination that the economy is in a downturn. In the previous recession, the committee did not declare that the economy was in recession until December 2008, a year after it had actually begun. But in this case, the NBER said the collapse in employment and incomes was so steep that it could much more quickly make a determination. asdf
“The unprecedented magnitude of the decline in employment and production, and its broad reach across the entire economy, warrants the designation of this episode as a recession, even if it turns out to be briefer than earlier contractions,” the NBER panel said. (source)
This is exactly a point that I have noted for a while. There was going to be a recession inevitably- one that should have fully been allowed to naturally happen back in 2007 because of economic fundamentals that have not changed related to debt. The only reason it did not happen was because the Federal Reserve Bank has been printing money for thirteen years and devaluing the currency intentionally to delay the inevitable day of reckoning that, given the conditions, would likely take the form of completely destroying its value because of the same printing, also known as hyperinflation.
It is so interesting that COVID-19 came up at this time too, for it is the perfect excuse upon which blame can be placed for natural circumstances as it pertains to this economic situation. Take this for what one wants to believe, but given the strange series of events surrounding the virus, the lack of information about key points, and the effects it has had around the world, one would be in grave error to deny the adage that, if the truth was fully known, it would be stranger than any fiction that one can imagine.