pull down to refresh

If you're like me, you've lost track of all the recent "recessions". In a highly inflationary environment, with dubious inflation metrics being relied on, "real" GDP growth/decline figures are hard to put much stock in.
What Caused the 2022 Recession? By D.W. MacKenzie "The American economy fell into an unofficial recession during the first half of 2022. Yet, unemployment fell to low levels by the summer of 2022. Why did 2022 GDP fall?"
As I recall it the inflation picked up at the end of 2021. Power and gas prices specifically.
reply
That's probably about right if you're talking about price inflation. The real inflation was the enormous injection of new money during the 2020 lockdowns. Initially, that manifested in shortages, because prices didn't rise as much as they should have. Eventually, all that new money resulted in higher prices.
reply
Yeah, price inflation, probably caused by earlier money supply inflation. Felt like media then tried to pin price inflation on Russia/Ukraine which made me take a mental note of my actual direct experience.
reply
Russia/Ukraine certainly didn't help energy prices (neither did the CIA blowing up the Nord Stream for that matter), but I had a colleague sounding the alarm on energy prices well before Russia invaded. It was already baked in the cake as a result of European green energy production falling way short of projections, which meant Europe had to draw way more natural gas from the global market than anticipated. This also led to an enormous spike in fertilizer prices, btw.
reply