The US Is In Recession According To These 7 Charts

Zero Hedge ^ | 05/13/2015 | Tyler Durden

[SeekAndFind]

The evidence continues to mount...

"Most since Lehman" has become the new meme for macro-economic data in the US as day after day brings another lacklustre superlative to be dismissed with some excuse by the cognoscenti of sell-side economists...

 

 Of course, that is aside from anything related to aggregate jobs that is spewed by the government's official ministries of truth... (do not look at this chart)

*  *  *

So here are seven charts that scream "recession" is here...

Retail Sales are weak - extremely weak. Retail Sales have not dropped this much YoY outside of a recession...

 

And if Retail Sales are weak, then Wholesalers are seeing sales plunge at a pace not seen outside of recession...

 

Which means Factory Orders are collapsing at a pace only seen in recession...

 

And Durable Goods New Orders are negative YoY once again - strongly indicative of a recessionary environment...

 

Which is not going to improve anytime soon since inventories have not been this high relative to sales outside of a recession

 

In fact, the last time durable goods orders fell this much, The Fed launched QE3 - indicating clearly why they desperately want to raise rates imminently... in order to have some non-ZIRP/NIRP ammo when the next recession hits.

*  *  *

And just in case you figured that if domestic prosperity won't goose the economy, Chinese and Japanese stimulus means the rest of the world will save us... nope!! Export growth is now negative... as seen in the last 2 recessions.

 

And deflationary pressures (Import Prices ex-fuel) are washing upon America's shores at a pace not seen outside of a recession...

 

*  *  *

But apart from that, given that US equities are at record highs, everything must be great in the US economy...

 

Wait a minute.

[Dr. Thorne]

Nah. Can’t be. After all, the rich are getting richer by manipulating the stock market, so things are just GREAT!

[b4its2late]

Yep. You think we ever got out of one?

[Yosemitest]

Blame it on the "OBAMA-Nation" (abomination).

[cuban leaf]

Nope. See tag line.

We are in this to the bottom.

And I’ve compared it to a guy jumping out of a plane at 10,000 feet without a chute. At first, you hardly notice the ground coming up, but the closer it gets, the faster it looks. An in the last 500 feet it’s quite fast.

I think the ground is pretty close now. The speed at which it approaches is amazing.

And then there is The Harbinger and September 23, 2015

[b4its2late]

Yeah, I agree, we didn’t get out of it, no matter what these govt types preach.

[eyeamok]

Don’t worry folks, we won’t run out of Money, the Fed will just print more if we need it.

[newfreep]

“The Harbinger and September 23, 2015”

Please elaborate...thanks!

[cuban leaf]

Google it. Better yet, youtube it. The cycles he speaks of are glaring in the charts.

[cuban leaf]

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cahn+shemitah+harbinger

[SuzyQue]

“The Harbinger and September 23, 2015”?

[SuzyQue]

Never mind. I see you answered while I was still posting my question.

Thanks,

[alloysteel]

Sure, we have been out of the recession for quite a while now.

Because it turned into a DEPRESSION, a fact not generally recognized because of the “safety net” now in place that was not there during the period 1931-1940. This “safety net”, what with rent subsidies, food assistance, and various kinds of “disability” payments, is being paid for with deficit financing of a scope never before attempted, or for the longest time, not even imaginable. We are blowing through our children’s and our grandchildren’s legacies, which makes this DEPRESSION so much worse than the “Great Depression” of the 1930’s. Its effects will be felt fifty, seventy-five, a hundred years from now, and it will negatively affect whatever national entity replaces the nation once known as “the United States of America”, in the territory on the continent of North America.

Dystopia seems to be a very real future. And closer than any of us may imagine.

Pray for an interstellar invasion.

[Pecos]

The simpler number is that 93 MILLION able-bodied Americans of working age are not currently employed. And every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics "revises downward" the previous month's report of jobs created....and the MSM never asks why that august body is always wrong. It's as if the NYT put bold black headlines on the front page, and the next day wrote their retraction on page Z-59.

The next time you hear one of those reports, please remember that about 250,000 jobs have to be created every month just to keep up with the country's birth rate.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: The simpler number is that 93 MILLION able-bodied Americans of working age are not currently employed

Let’s be a little more realistic...

The 93 million number is padded, since this number includes a lot of Americans who WOULD NOT BE expected to be working. Specifically:

• People age 16 to 17, who likely are in high school: 9 million

• People who are enrolled in either two- or four-year colleges: 21 million

• People age 65 and older, who have reached retirement age: 40 million people

That means 20 million people are of normal working age, not in college and not working. That’s less than one-quarter the amount repeatedly cited.

So the above 90 million number is exaggerated. Even so, the idea that fewer people are joining the workforce is something that worries economists.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Can’t be a recession until we have the final key indicator:

Republicans in charge.

[cicero2k]

It’s 1937 all over again.

[b4its2late]

Good points.