The Slowdown

Looks like Q4 of 2007 featured truly anemic growth of just 0.6 percent. That's a reminder that some of the "is it a recession?" talk that you hear in bad times is fairly arbitrary. To qualify as a real recession, you need economic contraction. But in the real world a quarter of 0.2 percent growth is very similar to a quarter of -0.2 percent growth, and quite different from a quarter of 3.2 percent growth. The hop over the zero mark doesn't actually cause anything magical to happen. A prolonged period of 0.6 percent growth would cause a ton of hardship and falling living standards even if things never crossed the line into official recession territory.