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5 indicators we're reaching the recession tipping point: Don Pittis

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Replying to  @FloryGoncalves and 49 others
"Content disabled" 
Trust that I have been at this for awhile This went out two years before the last recession

http://davidamos.blogspot.com/2006/05/harper-and-bankers.html



https://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2019/10/5-indicators-were-reaching-recession.html






https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/recession-layoffs-gladwell-1.5313099






Replying to  @FloryGoncalves and 49 others
Methinks the new boss of the World Bank, David Malpass knows that its not rocket science to understand the doing of his cohorts Frank McKenna of the TD Bank knows I have been smelling a global recession coming for years N'esy Pas?





https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/recession-layoffs-gladwell-1.5313099





5 indicators we're reaching the recession tipping point: Don Pittis

Signals to watch to decide if the world has begun the slide into the next recession



Don Pittis· CBC News· Posted: Oct 10, 2019 4:00 AM ET




This week the International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva said, 'The global economy is now in a synchronized slowdown,' contributing to the groupthink that could tip the economy into recession. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

This week hints of a global recession came from Montreal. Speaking at McGill University, the new boss of the World Bank, David Malpass, warned the global economy is heading to fresh lows.

"In June, the World Bank Group forecast that the global economy in 2019 would grow at 2.6 per cent, the slowest pace in three years," said Malpass. "We now expect growth to be even weaker than that."

If you've heard that a recession is six months or more where a national economy shrinks, those numbers don't sound too ominous. That's until you realize that for years the International Monetary Fund considered global growth of less than three per cent equal to a worldwide recession.



In a one-two punch, the new head of the IMF also issued a warning.

"The global economy is now in a synchronized slowdown," said Kristalina Georgieva, who took over from Christine Lagarde on Oct. 1.

But it may not be the experts' predictions that matter per se, so much as the fact that they, and so many other people, are talking about recession.

Such gloomy views, uttered by officials at the highest level, may be one more signal that despite what still appears to be a vigorous economy in Canada, we really are teetering on the brink. Even people denying a recession is coming may contribute.

Contagious worry


The technically minded among us like to look for hard mechanistic warnings, such as the inverted yield curve, to tell us a recession is around the corner. But this time that bond market signal, where short-term interest rates creep higher than long-term rates, may be a cause as much as an independent indicator.

Many experts have expressed the view that with central banks manipulating long- and short-term rates, both of which remain near historic lows, the yield curve is not the recessionary portent it once was.



But what the yield curve warning did do was increase the one thing that is well known as a precursor of recessions: that is, growing worries about recession.

Despite a passion for math and charts and graphs, it is increasingly accepted that economics is not a science like physics but the study of a social process, with money as the unit of measure.


Banking giant HSBC announced this week it was cutting 10 per cent of staff despite a strong balance sheet. Competitors will likely follow suit. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

As in other communal phenomena, this monetized sociology is a product of how we react to each other, and while recessions often have an external trigger that takes the blame, there is evidence that a recessionary mood grows until we hit a tipping point of the kind described by Canadian author and social analyst Malcolm Gladwell.
"The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire," wrote Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point.

If that applies to recessions, then economic indicators such as declining investment, trade hostility, a drop in manufacturing, plus declines in consumer confidence, retail sales and employment are not cause-and-effect, but co-variables.

Thinking recessionary thoughts


That means the best indicator of recession are signals we are thinking about recession. Here are five possible telltale signs.
 


Google searches of terms including the word recession have reached levels similar to before the last recession.



1. Personal finance advice


The growing number of articles on the business pages telling you what to do with your money to prepare for recession. People who have money and move it to safer places may directly cause the economy to shrink. But even for those without liquid investments to move around, the warnings help spread the idea that recession is coming.

2. Corporate downsizing


Big companies, including this week the financial giant HSBC, announcing plans to lay off staff in anticipation of harder times. The global bank, one of the first to batten down for the Great Recession of 2008, says it plans to cut 10 per cent of its employees, despite having a healthy balance sheet. Watch for whether it spreads to competitors and other industries.

3. The R-word


An early recognition of the tipping-point concept was the R-word Index proposed by the Economist magazine decades ago, which demonstrated mentions of the word recession in newspapers grew when recessions approached. That crowdsourced index has been updated and broadened by Google Trends, where searches that include the word recession themselves become recessionary indicators. The Washington Post reports that such searches have now reached 2008 levels.

4. Empty shop fronts


This is an indicator we can check in our neighbourhoods. In a retail strip I frequent, suddenly the number of empty store fronts has noticeably increased, helping to share a gloomy mood. Not even nail salons are moving in. It's a down-home sign people don't think it's time to begin a risky venture. Do your own research.

5. Penny pinching 


The other local thing you can watch for in your office or home life is what one commentator recently called "the rise of the petty bean-counters," the feeling that with bad times around the corner it is time to cut back on stationery, office parties or personal luxuries. As well as pulling morale down, when we all cut back on spending it shrinks the entire economy, potentially crossing Gladwell's tipping point threshold and spreading like wildfire.


Follow Don on Twitter @don_pittis



About the Author





Don Pittis
Business columnist
Don Pittis was a forest firefighter, and a ranger in Canada's High Arctic islands. After moving into journalism, he was principal business reporter for Radio Television Hong Kong before the handover to China. He has produced and reported for the CBC in Saskatchewan and Toronto and the BBC in London. He is currently senior producer at CBC's business unit.






1471 Comments 






Mike Brauman
hasn't this been said by every newsmedia agency every few weeks for the last 5 years?


David Raymond Amos  
Reply to @mike brauman: Trust that you can't get to read everything because of censurship
















R. Gabrielle Berry
Signs of the coming Apocalypse.
Brzezinski has concluded: The American people are becoming more & more dumbed-down surrendering control of their lives to the elite; they are unable to even think for themselves. Dumbed-down comes with the downloading of what is driven into their brains by the mainstream media outlets, but also (& especially) social sites.
Effect: Americans defer cognitive thinking & analysis to what is communicated by twitter (and its ilk) + the MSM presstitute. 

All drugs (illegal or legal) dumb-down people’s minds, mess up brain functioning.
Currently an incredible @ 70% of Americans are taking at least one prescription drug. Between the multibillion dollar alcohol & tobacco industries & the multibillion dollar Big Pharma industry, these corporate entities possess I incredible power in America - lobbying/buying off politicians, spending billions on advertising, indirectly killing people whose addiction overpowers them.
Rampant drug addiction in US has become just another extremely effective means of control over millions of human lives. The number of deaths related to drug overdose has jumped over 500% since 1980.
Now think about chemically processed foods - chemical and hormone injected meat products, genetically altered organisms (GMO’s) & pesticide-riddled foods; the entire American population (except elites) consumes these daily. They are limited by their ability to pay for higher priced organic food.
I could go on- but space has its limitations....
So, think about this: elites have laid out their own contingency plans.
Recession is but one of their ways to reduce a surplus population and the expenses that come with these unnecessary people.
It's time for a killing recession. 



David Raymond Amos 
Reply to @R. Gabrielle Berry: Methinks you should checkout my Twitter account sometime if you dare to stress test your cognitive thinking and ability to analyze things in pursuit of the awful truth N'esy Pas?














David Raymond Amos
Need I say BINGO?

"This week the International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva said, 'The global economy is now in a synchronized slowdown,' contributing to the groupthink that could tip the economy into recession" 












David Raymond Amos
Methinks the new boss of the World Bank, David Malpass knows that its not rocket science to understand the doings of his cohorts In fact Frank McKenna of the TD Bank knows I have been smelling a global recession coming for years While else would the Russians and Chinese be buying gold by the ton N'esy Pas?



David Raymond Amos

Content disabled
Reply to @David Raymond Amos: Trust that I have been at this for awhile This went out two years before the last recession

http://davidamos.blogspot.com/2006/05/harper-and-bankers.html


David Raymond Amos

Content disabled
Reply to @David Raymond Amos: Trust that I have been at this for awhile This went out two years before the last recession

http://davidamos.blogspot.com/2006/05/harper-and-bankers.html




David Raymond Amos
Reply to @David Raymond Amos: Methinks somebody loves Franky Boy N'esy Pas?

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