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Elon, Cathie Wood & The Dead Cat Bounce

Cathie Wood
American investor Cathie Wood. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
July 24, 2022

I know you’re all here for Elon Musk porn, but let me start with a few notes on a far more pressing and widespread concern: whether or not we are in a recession, and whether or not that even matters at all.

The White House is supposedly sweating next week’s G.D.P. data, as well they should, but does it really matter if we’re in an official recession, or not? I don’t think so. If inflation is raging along at 9 percent annually and G.D.P. is in decline, the question is what will the American people actually feel? Higher prices for nearly everything or some amorphous sense that our gross domestic product has fallen two quarters in a row? Hence the Biden administration’s new talking points, previewed in this White House blog post, that notes “there are no fixed rules” for determining a recession.