U.S. Recession officially started in December 2007

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) claims the current recession in the US officially started in December 2007.

You can read the article here.

This is interesting partially b/c the NBER did not follow the typical definition of recession this time around. Typically, a recession is declared when we have had at least two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. While this is not the official definition it certainly is one that I and many other people thought to be a widely accepted one.

This time around dating the recession back to 12/2007 really has more to do w the peak in employment during the last bull market which occurred back in late 2007.

It is also interesting b/c it makes the recession 1 yr old already. Psychologically that is a long time. And it may well be late 2009 before the recession is declared over.

There is a strong possibility this could be a 2 yr recession which is long by post-WW2 standards.