# The Ghost Recession: A Brief Economic History of Now

An episode of [Optimist Economy](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1802625282), 23 Sep 2025, 1 h 01 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/sblTq32fyWAjsHzze2LG/dovetail.prxu.org/14811/b7938d3f-b3f9-49ea-bd89-27cf5f41d15e/68f9e4fa-3656-4cb2-aeeb-da37f79d2ccd.mp3

The economic pain that Americans experienced in 2022-23 was dubbed the “vibesession,” suggesting that negative public sentiment was out of sync with a healthy economy. But what we were truly experiencing was more like a “ghost recession.” As the Fed squeezed the economy by raising interest rates from zero to above 5% to get inflation under control, only the extraordinary circumstances of the post-pandemic economy kept unemployment low and the economy growing. But if we had a ghost recession, that also means that the nascent 2024 “ghost recovery” screeched to a halt with the radical changes to economic policy this year. Also in this episode: What it means that 911,000 fewer jobs were created from spring 2024-2025, and many metaphor try-outs. Revenge of the Vibecession | The New Yorker Birth-Death Model FAQ THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE definition in American English | Collins English Dictionary Economists’ models of inflation are letting them down \[The Economist 2019\]

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