Rumors Can Accelerate A Pending Recession

Composed in Chicago, Illinois--

I'm in the windy city to do some video work for Ragan Communications and to keynote a leadership conference.

Whether the country is officially in recession is determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private nonprofit research organization. The group considers several economic indicators, as well as the severity and duration of a downturn.

The NBER says the most recent recession lasted from March 2001 until November 2001 and that the economy has been in "expansion" since then.  Media personalities like Stephen Colbert, Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity keep using the "R" word.

Yet, the NBER typically doesn't declare a recession for anywhere from 6 to 18 months after its arrival.

On Friday, the NBER's president, Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein, said we are in a recession, though it was not an official NBER declaration.

Until a formal announcement is made, a recession is apparently a state of mind.  How we speak and behave can instigate a recession, however.  If we talk about a recession in the present tense the announcement may come that much sooner.

As Stephen Colbert, author of I Am America and So Can You, might say, "We talk about a recession, therefore we am."