[code4life]

It really feels like we are in the middle of a recession.

[reactordev]

Worse, we’ve been in one but have been pretending we aren’t. Stock goes up.

[softwaredoug]

If not for the top 10 of the S&P 500 - the companies that can get a meeting at the white house - we'd probably be in a recession and S&P would be down.

[boilerupnc]

Previously discussed:

“ Without data centers, GDP growth was 0.1% in the first half of 2025”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45512317

[JKCalhoun]

Waiting for the music to stop…

(Actually I'm not, but the rest of the market seems to be. In this version of musical chairs, you can sit down any time you like—you just miss out on potential gains before the music stops.)

[bell-cot]

The biggest "pretend" is where spokesmen, spin doctors, and sycophants for the plutocrat class have somehow convinced the 99% that stocks going up makes more jobs for the little people.

[formerly_proven]

Line goes up or it gets the stonks again

[lycopodiopsida]

Well, it may be - hidden, at least in the US, by the "AI"-Bubble. But also an interesting point is that these layoffs do not happen in struggling companies -they all have increasing profits.

It is most likely a way to squeeze out some easy penny and pump up share prices - remember the "shareholder value". Shareholders today are all looking for pump & dump schemes.

[johnnyanmac]

Is there anyway to "fix" this? WHy are people only thinking short term these days? That mindset seems a bit... morbid.

[gjm11]

"At the end of July, Amazon reported second quarter results which beat Wall Street expectations on several counts, including a 13% year over year increase in sales to $167.7bn (£125bn)."

The stock-owning class is in a boom. The working class is in a recession.

(People who have stock-market investments and need to work for a living are somewhere in between.)

The average of one billionaire gaining £10M and a hundred middle-class folks losing £100k is solidly positive, so this looks like a "growing economy" to many of the usual metrics.

I am not sure whether the people who are benefiting from all this have noticed how often this sort of dynamic in the past has led to torches and pitchforks and the like.

[dep_b]

Is that an increase in sales, or just everything getting more expensive?

[philipallstar]

A year on year increase in sales is real. It's not silly metrics like "net worth". Actual value is being exchanged.

[einrealist]

The middle? Oh we are just starting....

[rkozik1989]

Our industry has probably been in a recession for the past 3-4 years. Where have you been?

[johnebgd]

We are…

[rvz]

We already were in one. You just waited until someone else told you it was too late.

[mattmaroon]

Recession is a term with a very defined meaning and that meaning does not include employment at all.

[aesh2Xa1]

It does include employment. It's discussed in terms of "employment" or "jobs" thresholds and trends.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

> In the United States, a recession is defined as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the market, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales."[4] The European Union has adopted a similar definition.[5][6]

[MangoToupe]

Yes, more accurately we're in the middle of an extremely shitty economy for everyone but stockholders

[whobre]

Recession is officially whatever NBER says it is and it doesn’t have a well defined meaning.

[_fizz_buzz_]

This is actually a good read: https://www.nber.org/research/business-cycle-dating

Employment is an important indicator according NBER.