From the Wall Street Journal this morning:
"The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.9% annual rate last quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That marks a second straight quarterly decline in gross domestic product–a common definition of recession.
"Inflation hit a fresh four-decade high during the second quarter, hammering consumer sentiment and eroding Americans’ purchasing power. The Federal Reserve responded by aggressively raising interest rates, which in turn cooled the housing market, reducing brokers’ commissions and denting residential investment.
"The U.S. economic recovery is following an unusual trajectory, with weakening output but strong job gains. The unemployment rate, a key barometer of economic health, held steady at a low 3.6% for the past four months, and employers continued to hire at a strong pace. Most economists in a Wall Street Journal survey expect the economy to grow in the third quarter and in 2022 as a whole, though lately they have been dropping their estimates."
- KC's View:
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One expert tells the Journal that we're in a "sentiment recession," which may matter even more than a technical recession as defined by economists, who can never agree on this stuff anyway.
If they're right, however, that the economy is likely to grow during the rest of the year, however anemically, I'd think this will largely be because of growth in retail. Which may be the very definition of a somewhat silver lining.
