The Next Recession Is Coming Soon

Terry Jeffrey reports:

The truth is: We are in the Obama recovery now. If history is a guide, these are the best of the Obama times.

The next presidential term -- no matter who serves in the Oval Office -- is likely to see another recession.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) -- the definitive determiner of when recessions begin and end -- declared that the last recession ended in June 2009. We have been in what counts as an economic expansion for more than 36 months.

It doesn't matter if real gross domestic product only grew at 1.7 percent in 2011 and at annual rate of 1.9 percent in the first quarter of this year. It doesn't matter if unemployment has remained above 8 percent in every single month since the last recession ended. This is what Obama's expansion looks like.

According to NBER, there have been 33 business cycles in the United States since 1854. On average over that period, recessions have lasted 17.5 months and expansions have lasted 38.7 months. Since World War II, the recessions have tended to be shorter -- lasting an average of 11.1 months -- and the expansions longer -- lasting an average of 58.4 months.

The last three expansions have been particularly long -- running 92 months (from November 1982 to July 1990), 120 months (from March 1991 to March 2001) and 73 months (from November 2001 to December 2007).

Just a reminder.