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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (30191)	12/8/2008 2:23:42 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

"Perhaps the proper conclusion is that nothing is official." No, I don't think so... because there are things that are "official" (the Metric Standards, for example <g>). However, in the task of dating the start and stop dates for recessions, as we've have shown, there are various and sundry different methodologies that are used in various places, and at various times, by different groups. It is only in the last, what? 25 years or so?, that N.B.E.R. has come to be seen as the one best candidate in the U.s. for an 'official' or 'semi-official' referee of that. And, as I've already shown --- there are PERFECTLY VALID REASONS why no one in their right mind, anywhere in the world, would ever trust a government to be honest in such a determination... given that recessions impact so negatively on a government's popularity. That is why folks have coalesced round the non-partisan group of esteemed professional economists for this task....