Hooray, the Recession Is Over! - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily

Hooray, the Recession Is Over! - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily: "Rather, I am pointing out the virtual uselessness of the empirical approach when it comes to 'fine-tuning' the macroeconomy. Even if we had reason to believe that government policies could overcome the failings of the free market, such interventions would be as hopeless as those of an Earth surgeon operating on a Martian patient with a remote-controlled scalpel. The information lag would be enormous."

"According to the NBER, the US economy went through a severe recession from December 2007 to June 2009. Now it took the NBER until December 1, 2008 to announce that the economy was in a recession — a full year after it began (according to the same NBER). And then, with this week's announcement, the NBER announced that the economy had exited the recession, a full 15 months after the fact."

"Let's say you are running and then break a leg. You have to crawl now, but you develop that skill and are able to get from here to there. Are you in recovery from the accident? According to the NBER, yes — so long as you are crawling faster than when you first hit the ground in agony."