AP,Conveniently Change Its Definition of 'Recession'

Subject: txt mny msm -
The Associated Press's business writers' year-end roundup of 2009's top business stories is so biased and error-prone that I am devoting a weekly column to nuking it, the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa writes that:

"After four quarters of decline, the economy returns to growth during the July-to-September period, signaling the end of the deepest and longest recession since the 1930s."

All of a sudden, Aversa is telling us that that the recession really ran from the third quarter of 2008 through the second quarter of 2009. She says that the recession ended during the third quarter of 2009 simply because the economy has returned to positive GDP growth (i.e., the "signal" went from a minus sign to a plus sign), which means she is now pegging it as having begun just four quarters earlier.

In other words, after using the NBER to define the beginning of the recession, she is using the "normal people" definition of a recession to say it's over.

Well, isn't that special?

['Typical' is closer to the truth.]

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