Nearly Half of Small Businesses Say the Recession Has Already Started

I am an old guy and still don’t know what to make of a lot of “these new things,” but CNBC seems to treat polling agency “Survey Monkey” the way us old guys would treat a Gallup poll so, here goes . . .

  • Nearly half (48%) of all small businesses surveyed believe the US is already in a recession
  • 74% believe inflation has not peaked, and
  • Just 31% answered “confident” when asked about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Those are the results of a CNBC/Survey Monkey poll released this week. (links below)
.

According to the article

”(T)he 74% of small business owners who say they are experiencing rising costs of supplies is virtually unchanged from Q4 2021 . . .”

the number of businesses passing on costs to customers has risen to 47% in the first quarter, up from 39% in Q4 2021.

The survey also noted

  • “another 32% indicate they will have to raise prices soon if inflation persists,”
  • “Sticky inflation is their expectation,” and
  • “Over eighty percent of small business owners expect inflation to still be a problem six months from now (55% say that is “very likely”.)

Again I am not familiar enough with survey monkey to know if the modern polling methods are a reflection of a wider sentiment. Assuming they are, we can safely say
America’s small business owners believe we are in a recession
and believe recession + inflation is in our immediate future.

and

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By contrast investors say we are not in a recession and we re not going to be in one.

(A) “soft landing” occurs when heat is taken out of the economy without causing it to veer into recession. Yet the phrase’s illustrious origins hide an ignominious reality. The first time such a landing was predicted, in 1973, by George Shultz, America’s treasury secretary, things did not go to plan. A recession began almost immediately; inflation blazed for the rest of the decade.

Though Mr Shultz’s forecast was catastrophically wrong, it was not unusual.

I guess Wall St has also predicted 3 out of the last 0 soft landings maybe??

I already knew there was a recession when everything got 8.7% more expensive, at minimum. The Jackasses still got some catching up to do. :wink:

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I can’t say you’re wrong but it is not totally unprecedented for economists to use employment trends as a “special case” and then declare or undeclare a recession.

Anyway a couple things tht make this recession “special.”

  • employment is abnormally strong.
  • family incomes, (which are only one part of GDP) are in steep huge decline, but the rest of GDP is so strong GDP growth is a kiss above positive
  • there is an unprecedented ton of cash sitting on the sidelines

It’s not all bad. My pensions also increased by 8.7%, unlike the suckers who specifically voted for this mess. :sunglasses:

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Making the money printers go brrrrrr is what drives inflation. More dollars = less value = it takes more of them to pay for things. The stimmy checks alone insured we’d have a long inflationary period.