“Yeah, thanks for that Rich. 2 quarters seems survive-able. Why did the one in the early 90s seem so painful?”
Lindismith, a clarification: when Rich is saying that a recession is formally defined as 2 quarters of decreasing GDP, what he actually meant to say is AT LEAST 2 quarters. In other words, a single bad quarter doesn’t count as a recession. But recessions often last longer than just 2 quarters (I think the historical average is about a year, although the recent ones have been shorter).
Anyways, these are just formal definitions. Periods of less than 1% growth feel almost like recessions, too. A decade of stop-and-go growth (like Japan’s) feels pretty miserable.
