The Recession Is Over!

07-27-2009 • newsweek

The recession is over, Newsweek screams from the cover of its most recent issue, which is out today, and which you can read by clicking here.

Three things you need to know:

a) No, it isn't.

b) Magazines depend on rack sales for revenue.

c) Rack sales are driven by purposefully hyperbolic headlines, everything from "ELVIS LIVES!" to "The Recession Is Over!"

Once you read the story inside, you will see that Newsweek economics columnist Dan Gross hasn't exactly, definitively, proclaimed the end of the recession, now in its 19th month.

"The Great Recession," Gross writes, "is most likely over."

He admits this is a technicality. Recessions end when gross domestic product stops shrinking. And that may actually happen later this year. But he goes on to correctly state that unemployment will continue to rise, just as it has after the end of previous recessions, and it will still fee

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