UK out of recession?

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article7002715.ece

It took two of three quarters of negative growth for our government to finally admit to us having entered a recession and yet here we have a single quarter of positive growth (0.1%!) and suddenly the media and Brown are celebrating like it's all over with? is this more pre-election propaganda?

0.1% growth is hardly anything significant considering the economy fell by 4.8% in 2009 and it could be negative again next quarter undoing the 0.1% of the previous quarter.
 
How in the Hell am I that fast that I posted my answer Before the O.P. :eek:
 
mmj_uk said:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article7002715.ece

It took two of three quarters of negative growth for our government to finally admit to us having entered a recession and yet here we have a single quarter of positive growth (0.1%!) and suddenly the media and Brown are celebrating like it's all over with? is this more pre-election propaganda?

0.1% growth is hardly anything significant considering the economy fell by 4.8% in 2009 and it could be negative again next quarter undoing the 0.1% of the previous quarter.
Click to expand...
0.1% may be an small growth, but it is not insignificant.

The standard definition of a recession is a decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more consecutive quarters. Thus any growth is technically the end of a recession.

However, this isn't an economically desirable definition because it ignores several variables.

The Business Cycle Dating Committee at the NBER has a more realistic view, which determines the amount of business activity in the economy by looking at things like employment, industrial production, real income and wholesale-retail sales.

A recession is then defined as the time when business activity has reached its peak and starts to fall until the time when business activity bottoms out. What follows is known as the expansionary period, until a time when business activity is at a large growth rate.

Obviously the standard definition favours Labour at a time when they need every point they can get for an election, so it stands to reason they would utilise the more simple one.
 
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Convenient time to announce this with an impending election… Just to quote something I heard not too long ago –

‘writers use lies to tell the truth’ and ‘politicians use lies to cover the truth’.

Astounds me sometimes – we might or might not be out of recession. The sceptic in me just feels this is sugar coating…..
 
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