Not a recession

2019 GNP 

• 2019 Q1 - 3.1
• 2019 Q2 - 2.0  
• 2019 Q3 - 2.3 (estimated GDPNow) 

Even a fairly negative consensus by leading economist called the "blue chip assessment" now projects that the third quarter of 2019 will be at least two percent (original estimates had been lower). While these are not economic boom numbers, what should be obvious to everyone is that consistent growth in the two to three percent is a long ways off from a recession.

Generally speaking our economy just doesn't drop several percentage points in GDP growth for no reason. A cyclical recession would generally involve a fairly consistent slowdown for multiple quarters, leading to at least two quarters in a row of negative growth. Other recessions  are the result of something extremely tangible that has an overwhelming affect on the economy (such as the Housing market collapse of 2008). Generally these involve some sort of bubble burst of some economic condition that was keeping thing afloat.

So are we in any real immediate danger? Where are the economic bubbles right now? Real estate prices are going up, but there is no indication that Americans are spending (and relying on) their equities as they did in the mid 2000s. We are not running out of some stimulus package that will leave the economy with a hole to fill. The so called indicators with things like "inverted bond yields" are not tangible areas that are easily understood to slow growth. More to the point, just because every recession was preceded by a particular indicator, doesn't mean that that same indicator preceded a recession every time. All thumbs may be fingers, but not all fingers are thumbs.

What we know for sure is that we are not in a recession right now, and there is little actual reason to believe that things are slowing down at all, much less slowing down anywhere near fast enough to see any recession over the next few quarters.