It’s recession time — a mild one, so far — as the U.S. economy grew at a zero-point-zero annual rate this quarter after shrinking slightly during the first three months of the year.
While the numbers don’t seem to have been made public yet, someone at Zero Hedge got hold of them midday on Wednesday.
Economists consider the economy to be in recession when there is zero or negative growth for two consecutive quarters or more, and that’s what we’ve gotten in the first half of 2022 after a full year of Bidenomics has had its effects.
The economy shrank at an annual rate of 1.5% from January through March. That was revised downward from an original estimate of 1.4% shrinkage, and worse than the expected revision to 1.3%.
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Consumer spending drives more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy, and consumers are feeling the pinch of double-digit price hikes for nearly everything, higher borrowing costs, and record credit-card debt to try and pay for it all.
Considering all of that, it’s almost impressive that overstrained consumers managed to juice the economy all the way up to zero.
More details to come, I’m afraid.
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