It seems like so long ago when we started this recession that proved to be deeper than anything most of us have seen in our lifetime. The biggest insurers were in trouble. One of the biggest investment banks in the world were left to go bankrupt and the biggest banks were being drained of its financial resources.
Today, the better than expected second quarter GDP number is only down 1 percent, much better than what the economist were expecting. Now, most people are saying that the third quarter number will be positive, which officially means that the recession is over.
Christopher Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi says “…because of how GDP is calculated, just a slowing in their rate of decline could add as much as 4% to growth. We should be 31 days into a positive GDP growth quarter”.
He also said that all of this is so psychological and everything is self fulfilling. Therefore, consumer confidence will be key to recover and if Americans start spending again, even the V-shaped recovery that people are scared to talk about might be possible.