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Despite Tom Keene's best efforts to appear fair-and-balanced, this brief interview on Bloomberg TV places ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan in the uncomfortable position of destroying every propagandized 'fact' that the mainstream media is entrusted with disseminating to the Pavlovian investing community. From recessions with job growth ("we believe a US recession began in 2012") to the wealth divide and from GDP revisions to job quality differentials, Achuthan warns the US is becoming Japan, "U.S. growth over the last five years is weaker than Japan during the Lost Decades." Keene's insistence that things are on-the-up (though admitting that Achuthan's call on the...

ACHUTHAN: 'The Explanation Is Simple: Recession Kills Inflation' Sam Ro May 31, 2013, 1:20 PM Lakshman Achuthan, the head of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), continues to be convinced that the U.S. went into a recession in mid-2012. He writes his latest commentary in the wake of today's disappointing personal income and spending report. "Despite surging prices for homes and equities, consumer spending is contracting," writes Achuthan. "Quite simply, the wealth effect is rendered moot by languishing incomes. "No wonder yoy U.S. imports growth has also plunged into negative territory. In the past, this has happened only during U.S....

LAKSHMAN ACHUTHAN: Yes, It's Possible To Be In A Recession With GDP Growth At 2.5% Sam RoApr. 26, 2013, 10:37 AMEarlier today, we learned that real GDP grew at a 2.5% rate in Q1. While this was much lower than the 3.0% growth rate forecasted by economists, it still seems to be a clear indicator of economic growth. But not everyone sees it that way. Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute has long argued that the U.S. economy slipped into a recession in mid-2012. And he is convinced that we continue to be in a recession now. We...

ECRI Update: Reaffirming The Recession Call ... Again Advisor Perspectives (dshort.com) By Doug Short March 11, 2012 The Weekly Leading Index (WLI) growth indicator of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) is now at 0.1 as reported in today's public release of the data through May 4. This is essentially unchanged from last week. However, the underlying WLI again rose fractionally from an adjusted 124.6 to 125.4 (see the fourth chart below). ECRI Reaffirms it's the Recession Call ... Again The big news this week, however, is not the weekly data update but ECRI's latest reaffirmation of its recession call...

Whereas Achuthan said the jury is still out in late August, the weakness in leading economic indicators — and ECRI uses a dozen for the U.S. alone, he notes — has become a "contagion" that is spreading like "wildfire." Although the recovery has been "subpar" by nearly every measure, Achuthan refutes the idea the economy never got out of recession in the first place. "Just because it looks and feels a certain way doesn't mean it's a recession," he says. "You haven't seen anything yet. It's going to get a lot worse."