Americans are being gaslighted by the White House’s confusion about what recession means. The White House did not take cues form a prominent publication that was funded by George Soros (liberal billionaire).
The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released propaganda July 21: “It is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession.”
Three days earlier, major liberal global publication Project Syndicate released a column by Jeffrey Frankel, a Harvard economist and research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, which bloviated the same talking points: “[E]If the [Bureau of Economic Analysis] estimate is negative, however, it does not necessarily mean that the US has entered a recession.”
Frankel further gaslighted that “a US recession is not defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.” But a publication from Frankel’s own institution – the Harvard Business Review – even noted in a 2019 research article that recessions are “defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.”
Frankel even went so far as to suggest that “contrary to popular belief, first-quarter growth was not necessarily negative,” even though first-quarter GDP growth contracted 1.6 percent. Second-quarter GDP figures will be released by the BEA on July 28.
Soros’ Open Society Foundations funneled at least $1,532,105 into the spin-doctor Project Syndicate just between 2018 and 2020 alone. Project Syndicate boasts about its so-called “unparalleled” global reach. The company notes that its current activities are in 156 different countries. They also work with 508 media outlets. Their commentaries have appeared in 66 languages. In 2021, Project Syndicate distributed 1,385 columns and was published a total “of 20,393 times around the world.”
Frankel, like Project Syndicate is also associated with Soros. His Harvard profile boasts that he presented at the annual conference of Soros’s Institute for New Economic Thinking in 2011. Frankel was also a contributor to the 2003 book by Soros. Emerging Market Economies: Financial and Economic Crises, which was released by — oh look at that — the NBER. Strangely enough, Frankel and the CEA split hairs in their blogs by arguing the U.S. economy isn’t technically in a recession until the NBER that Frankel works for says so.
Their arguments were clearly engineered to trivialize the “practical definition of recession,” which is defined by two quarters of negative GDP growth.
We all felt pretty sure of the definitions of recessions before Biden’s administration attempted to change them. Do you remember back in 2019, when CNN’s John Harwood stated that even one quarter of GDP contraction would be enough to make a recession count?pic.twitter.com/mLfJ9RF4Of
— Bill D’Agostino (@Banned_Bill) July 25, 2022
Frankel spun that it is his NBER that “makes [the official recession] call, based on a variety of indicators – a role that the BEA officially recognizes.” The CEA, along similar lines, touted the NBER as the “the official recession scorekeeper.” But as The John Locke Foundation pointed out in a July 25 blog post, the NBER is, regularly, “incredibly slow in making [the recession] distinction.” The NBER announced the 2008 recession about a full year after it had started in January 2008, the blog noted.
Even liberal MSNBC host Chuck Todd accused Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen of “splitting hairs” when she wielded the NBER angle to downplay the “technical definition” of a recession. The liberal Mediaite highlighted the White House spin in a story headlined: “WATCH: White House Officials Spinning Definition of Economic Recession Met With Skepticism.”
The Washington Post even noted in a July 25 piece that two quarters of negative GDP growth is “generally understood to mean a recession” and that it is “rare for there to be two consecutive quarters of negative GDP without a recession.”
Conservatives under attackFor more information, contact ABC News (818-460-7477 or CBS News (212- 975-3247) and NBC News (220) 664-6192 to demand that the Biden administration be held responsible for spinning the definitions of recession.
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