Are we in a recession? If we are, we are in one that I have never seen the likes of it. Forbes defines a recession as a “significant decline in economic activity for months or even years. Experts declare a recession when a nation’s economy experiences negative gross domestic product, rising levels of unemployment, falling retail sales, and contracting measures of income and manufacturing for an extended period of time. Recessions are considered an unavoidable part of the business cycle - or the regular cadence of expansion and contraction that occurs in a nation’s economy.” I am not an expert on the economy by any means but I have been through a few recessions in my day and if we are this one is a pretty strange one. I always try to think of things in simple terms. My economy is how much money I have coming in today versus yesterday. How much money I have going out today versus yesterday. What has changed in the direction my money is going in today versus yesterday.

In the early 1970’s I remember when we had double digit inflation. Things were much worse than they are now. Nixon waged war on inflation with various executive decisions that controlled wages and prices. I remember having to wait 6 months for my raise to be approved in 1972 because his administration controlled everything. No President since has welded so much power in influencing the economy as Nixon did and there are many experts that feel that his controls led to many of the problems like gas shortages that happened during the Ford Presidency. I think that there is a very fine line between too much and not enough government control. For over forty years we have not seen the gas lines and the shortages that there were in the 1970s.In fact I think that the country has had it off pretty good for a long time. So good that we don’t remember what bad really is and just listen to what the so called experts tell us today. To listen to someone like Jim Jordan you would think the sky is falling.

There is a thing called the Misery Index and that is the combined inflation rate with the unemployment rate. During the Nixon administration it was in the 20s meaning that we had high unemployment and high inflation. The current misery index looks to be around 12 right now. Not good but not like it has been in the past. There seems to be something different about this recession and some of them on the past. Most recessions we have high unemployment and when I look around everyone is hiring. There are help wanted signs wherever I go. Stores are begging for workers. Restaurant are complaining about being short of staff. Getting good service is getting harder and harder to find. How can we be in a recession with so little unemployment? I was in Costco yesterday and there seemed to be plenty of everything that I would need for my daily survival. Chicken, pork, beef and fish seemed to be in great supply. I have seen the gas lines of the seventies, there doesn’t seem to be any gas shortages anywhere today. The price per barrel of oil does not seem to indicate that the price of gas should be where it is at. Oil companies are raking in huge profits. It seems to me that the only people that are feeling the pain of this recession is the consumer. Usually housing takes a big hit. I don’t keep tab on the housing around the nation but where I live it is booming. Maybe booming too much.

The economy and the business world of the 70s is a whole lot different than what it is today. Today economies worldwide are intertwined were they weren’t in the 70s. A President has much less control and influence what happens because our economies in my opinion is more dependent on the world stage and not just at home. Many of the goods that were manufactured here in America today are manufactured overseas so things that happen in the world will have a greater impact on our economy. We had one huge thing that affected the entire world and that was Covid. You cannot have a worldwide pandemic and not think that it is going to affect our economy. Our Government did not do anything to bring this pandemic to the shores of this country. Yes, there could have been opportunities missed that could have saved lives but as far as goods coming into this country? Well in my opinion that is another story. When you are so dependent on the entire world for many of our goods and when you have a crisis like Covid you are going to have problems no matter how hard you try to save the economy. Too many variables are out of our control. Many European Countries shut down. Trade with Southeast Asia became a crawl. My wife ordered herself a Lazyboy Recliner that took over 6 months to get in stock for us to pick up. It could have swam from China faster. No President created that issue. Covid did. You just can’t say that the pandemic is over and expect everything is ok. In fact you can’t say Covid is over just because you want it over. Is it over in China? Is it over in Europe? There will continue to be supply chain issues because we are not in control of everything. That is a problem when you have a country that is so dependent on other country’s manufacturing. And let’s face it. A trade war with one of our biggest suppliers of those goods can never be a good idea in my opinion and we had that too. One other thing. The answer should never be people must die for the sake of the economy.

I always look at what I think is one of the common denominators which I always think is oil. What started this rise in prices I think is the rise in gas. When did our gas start to rise? How about when the Colonial Pipeline was hacked by the Russians.  People don’t even talk about that anymore. But the prices never fell after that crisis and just continued to rise crisis after crisis. The price of oil and gas affects everything else. I am not expert but when more money goes into just one industry all the other sectors of our economy are going to suffer. More money going to the petroleum companies means less money at many of our local businesses. Less at restaurants and shopping centers. I have not seen anything that justifies why we are paying so much money at the pump except for greed. Oil companies are making record profits at the expense of all of us. Is that any President’s fault? If it is, then it is all of our President’s fault because none have controlled the oil companies. Nixon tried and that is probably what lead to all the shortages in the 70s. Other companies have jumped on the greed bandwagon. Record profits are being reported because companies can. Can that be controlled? Not with today’s politics where one party is working to make sure the American consumer suffers so they can return to power. That is right. Too many Republicans want you to suffer so you will put them back it power.

Considering what the world has gone through with the pandemic and the Russian invasion I think that our economy has done better than it should have. Greed is still our biggest problem and until we get the greed out of the halls of Congress we will always have people that will use the consumer in this country as pawns for a quest for power.

 

 

Recession Definition: What Is A Recession? – Forbes Advisor

Study Shows Excess Corporate Profits in the US Have Become 'Widespread' (commondreams.org)

How Nixon's Revolutionary Move Influenced U.S. Inflation For 50 Years (inflationdata.com)

U.S. Misery Index - Inflation + Unemployment (inflationdata.com)

U.S. companies posted record profits in 2021, jacking up prices as inflation surged | Fortune