Seven Fun Facts About Recessions

It is said that when America sneezes, the world gets a cold. A good example of that happened on August 5th, when the Japanese benchmark stock index, the Nikkei 225, had its worst day ever following a disappointing U.S. jobs report. August 5th was a pretty rough day in the news overall: Hurricane Debby was about to slam Florida, Google lost its DOJ antitrust suit over search, stocks tumbled worldwide, including a loss of 3% in the S&P 500, and Iran was apparently ready to strike Israel in response to an assassination in Tehran. It was a four-bagger of political, financial, economic, and climatic disasters. Bogieman terms like “Black Monday” and “Black Swan” were tossed around. Perhaps worst of all, the dreaded “R word”—recession— reared its ugly head again.