Seeming Slowdown

Oil prices aren’t spiking (which caused the 1973 and 1979 recessions), neither are interest rates (1981 and 1983 recessions). Better yet, banks aren’t failing, nor is consumer confidence tanking (collectively helping cause the 1990 recession), nor are equity prices and corporate investment collapsing (2000 recession), and there’s no mortgage-lending scandal (2008). But exports are weakening, corporate debt has ballooned, and China is decelerating. A slowdown, guaranteed, but no imminent recession.