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US economy is now in a recession as economic activity, including construction, grinds to a halt

2020-03-16T15:44:00-04:00

As society necessarily repositions itself in order to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), economic analysts are forecasting that the American economy has already entered into a near-term recession.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management issued a revised economic forecast today stating that the US economy has already stopped growing and will "remain in recession through the end of September," The Los Angeles Times reports.

The report indicates that economic activity will fall by 0.4% for the first quarter, which ends March 31st. Further, the report estimates that economic activity will contract by 6.5% in the second quarter and by an additional 1.9% in the third. If the pandemic is handled sometime this summer, the analysts predict, the economy could see 4% growth in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The report comes on the heels of a revised economic analysis from banking giant Goldman Sachs that also anticipates a recess...

It's getting harder to predict the next recession

2020-02-13T12:24:00-05:00

Treasuries now make up more than half of the world’s haven assets, double the share they accounted for during the global financial crisis, according to Eurizon SLJ Capital. That complicates matters when the spread between long- and short-term yields inverts: what used to be a reliable American recession indicator is instead an barometer of investors diving for cover worldwide.

One of the top three recession indicators economists look at to gauge the health of the American economy—the relationship between the various return rates on United States Treasury Bonds—is becoming less a useful metric for those analysts due to the influence of global economic trends, Yahoo! Finance reports.

Yield rates have "inverted" several times in the last few months, a phenomenon typically considered a "leading indicator" of a potential economic recession in the American economy. But economists are increasingly viewing the trend as a sign of global economic weakness—rather than economic weakness in the American economy specifically—as the strength and long-term stability of American Treasury Bonds lures foreign investors fleeing deteriorating global markets. The shift is making predicting the next recession more difficult task.

Mike Davis on the Global Economic Dystopia

2011-07-26T13:32:10-04:00

From the air, where those Iowa cornstalks don’t conceal the pattern of blind convergence, the world economic situation looks distinctly like a crash waiting to happen. From three directions, the United States, the European Union, and China are blindly speeding toward the same intersection. The question is: Will anyone survive to attend the prom?

From City of Quartz and teaching architecture students how to write, Mike Davis is now looking beyond Southern California.