Horseshoe.
By the time Lehman Brothers collapsed, the economy was already a shambles. The big banks don't go first, they go LAST. You are the ONLY person who thinks otherwise.
Lehman's collapse didn't start the "real tanking" (whatever that is). It was the end result of everything that had gone on before - primarily but not exclusively the bursting of the housing market bubble.
Economists recognize the recession as lasting about a year and a half - from December 2007 until mid 2009.
But keep trying.
Originally Posted by Revenant
Ok ExNYer, you should know better than to fuck with me on economics. I monitored the economy carefully through the entire 2008/09 recession and remember it like yesterday. Did you even bother to open and use the link I provided? It was for real GDP, which economists measure in order to pinpoint when recessions start and end. I assumed you were smart enough to figure out how to use the link, but evidently you're too clueless. So I will do everything for you. Here are the (annualized) percentage changes in real GDP for the 6 quarters starting with Q1 2008:
Q1 2008: -2.7%
Q2 2008: +2.0%
Q3 2008: -1.9%
Q4 2008: -8.2%
Q1 2009: -5.4%
Q2 2009: -0.5%
Q3 2009: +1.3%
Do I need to interpret it for you, mope? The economy was bouncing up/down and basically going sideways until the fourth quarter of 2008 - when it suddenly fell off a cliff! Real GDP contracted at an annual rate of 8.2%, which is alarming. It continued to shrink at an annual rate of 5.4% in the first quarter of 2009, before bottoming out. From the recession's peak to trough, 84% of the slump in output was packed into Q4 2008 and Q1 2009 (the six-month period from October 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009).
So you are completely out to lunch with your assertion that “the economy was already in shambles” by the time Lehman collapsed in Sept. 2008. It was wobbling, but hardly in shambles yet.
If you knew how to analyze these things, you also would have checked the unemployment rate. In mid-2008 it was still low at only 5.6%. A year later it had soared to 9.5%! That's a gigantic increase!
All the empirical data supports everything I said. YOU are the only person who thinks otherwise. The real tanking didn't start until late 2008 – just in time to impact the November election. For the economy to “tank” means to head south in a hurry. And by the way – EVERY recession is an “end result of everything that had gone on before”. Is that statement supposed to be illuminating in some way? Housing is only one sector in the economy. Yes, Wall Street was growing skittish about mortgage securities all through 2007 and the first half of 2008. But the recession didn't arrive until Lehman Brothers choked on them and credit froze up in the latter half of 2008.
Get it now, mope?
