If you trust the media (which as a quasi-member of, I don’t) then the world may be back-sliding into another recession. A chart without further granulation of the times/dates of such mentions of course suffers from the chicken-or-the-egg conundrum, but it is interest to wonder about.

From The Economist:

The Economist’s informal R-word index tracks the number of newspaper articles that use the word “recession” in a quarter. If not foolproof, it boasts a decent record: previous incarnations of the index pinpointed the start of American recessions in 1990, 2001 and 2007. The index had been declining steadily from a peak in early 2009. September, however, has brought a change in the weather.

If the “hacks…getting anxious,” as the Economist puts it, are wrong, it would certainly not be the first time. But their track record in this informal index should be concerning.