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administration down playing the recession call. there s semantics. what is a recession, how do you technically define it. no matter what, there s widespread agreement no matter who you talk to. that is that economic growth is slowing. the treasury secretary, janet yellen acknowledges as much. but then she maintains that that does not mean a recession is inevitable. this is not in an economy that is in recession. but we re in a period of transition in which growth is slowing. and that s necessary and appropriate. we need to be growing at a steady and sustainable pace. yellen says the job market is still strong. she says a recession would have to be a broad-based economic contraction. consumers are still spending. household balance sheets are still in good shape. all of that said, the economy did contract the first quarter. economists think at beast we ll see slow growth when the numbers release thursday. the white house insists even if that number does go negative an ....
So they re really i think spending too much time on the messaging part of this. we know the national bureau of economic research will time stamp this. they normally do. by the way, long after the recession is over. you know, the last recession, they time stamped it a year after it was over. it s a moot point to say it s okay. janet yellen knows that. she s buying trouble in my mind. neil: and janet yellen goes back to the backdrop of this, which is different than other period of recession where you don t have this job growth. 372,000 jobs gained in the latest month. 8 1/2, 9 million since the beginning of this administration. they seize on that saying if that s a recession, what is a surge? you re right. it is a unique part of the story. but it s also unique in the fact that we never shut down an economy before. we never had that many job loses in a short period of time. ....