Recessions are considered to be inevitable by modern economic standards

Recessions are often called retroactively, rather than while they’re occurring

Because recessions are recognized when a wide array of economic factors like falling GDP and high unemployment converge, they are often officially recognized after the fact.

A recession is commonly defined as two straight quarters of shrinking GDP

Recessions are sustained downturns in the economy. They’re significant, widespread, and there’s no single, surefire way to define or predict them.

An inverted yield curve has preceded every recession that’s occurred in the last 50 years

Prolonged yield curve inversions can predict recessions, but even brief inversions can cause investors to react with knee-jerk reactions.

How chaos helps explain why small market corrections can produce major economic instability

Oxford University complex systems professor Doyne Farmer discusses how predictions from many economic models are overly weighted toward simple relationships, such as supply and demand, and external shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, real-world macroeconomic systems involve public and private actors interacting, producing feedback loops and cascading effects that resemble the oscillatory behavior seen in chaotic systems.

The clearest sign of a recession is a steady increase of job losses and high unemployment

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) looks at six key economic indicators, including industrial production, to determine when the economy is experiencing a recession.

The US has been through 34 recessions since 1854

From 1855 to 2020, the average US recession lasted for an average of 17 months. But in the 20th and 21st centuries, the average recession length has shortened, decreasing to 14 months.

The Bretton Woods economic order was built on Keynesian principles

Keynesian economics suggests that governments should actively manage economies to prevent downturns, promote employment, and regulate markets. The Bretton Woods institutions were created based on this belief that coordinated public intervention could prevent the economic crises of the 1930s.

One theory suggests real estate markets follow a predictable 18-year pattern

The theory dictates that real estate markets tend to experience about 14 years of growth, including a mid-cycle dip, then experience four years of decline. Real estate experts in London discuss the theory in an article.

What something costs is reflective of a balance in the market determined by the amount of demand relative to the supply of goods and services

Because economies are complex systems, a wide variety of issues influence this balance—including some things generally considered to be positive, like rising wages.

'Good deflation' happens when prices naturally track with supply, meaning prices change gradually

This tends to make products and services more affordable and normalizes the standard of living. Bad deflation usually happens when there are sudden changes to either supply or demand. Near-zero [interest rates helped create the real estate bubble that sparked the Great Recession when it crashed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMo9mD8j7IA&t=91s) Because deflation distorts the value of money, deflation is particularly harmful for borrowers. Low interest rates made it easy for businesses and everyday people to take on enormous debt, which exacerbated the effects of the recession.

Experts don’t believe upbeat tunes, called ‘recession pop,’ are legitimate recession indicators

Social media users have begun deeming pop music by the likes of Kesha and Katy Perry a “recession indicator” as they try to predict the next economic downturn.

Why Ray Dalio thinks the US deficit is a political problem

Dalio frequently argues that debt cycles are inevitable and a tradition of every empire. However, he said in 2025 that the US was headed for a debt crisis. Dalio says that while Republicans and Democrats agree on the math of the debt crisis, all politicians make promises to neither increase taxes nor cut government benefits—which Dalio says can't close the deficit.

The failures of the interwar period made the case for a new international system

After World War I, countries devalued their currencies, raised tariffs to block imports, and seized territory unchecked, with the international community unable to organize effectively to stop them. The result was a global depression and, eventually, another world war.

Why there's a snack recession

Inflation and economic uncertainty have driven many Americans to make cuts to their snack budgets, according to reports from major food manufacturers like General Mills, JM Smucker, and Campbell's. Major retailers have also observed lower-income consumers cutting back on nonessentials due to the macroeconomic environment.

Retail investors are not professionals—they invest their own money

For retail investors, the stakes may seem higher and more personal. Critics say that this dynamic means that retail investors are more susceptible to behavioral biases that could lead them to make poor decisions when it comes to buying and selling assets. For instance, fear of missing out could cause a retail investor to buy a stock that is popular but not a financially worthy investment.

After the USSR's fall, many experts believed liberal democracy had permanently prevailed

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued in 1992 that liberal democracy and market capitalism had defeated their ideological opponents and would eventually spread everywhere—a thesis he called "the end of history." Subsequent decades complicated that claim.

Understanding the differences between capitalism and socialism

The two economic systems are rarely found in their pure form. Capitalism emphasizes private property, capital accumulation, and limited government regulation, while socialism favors government control of production to meet the needs of everyone rather than to generate profit. Most economies are a mix of both.

AI investment may be the next major economic bubble

A video examines the massive surge in AI spending—forecast to hit $500B by 2026—and how this may be propping up a fragile US economy. Experts warn that if AI investment slows or under-delivers, the consequences could be felt in markets, jobs and growth.

The 1929 stock market crash is a defining example of a financial bubble burst

Fueled by margin speculation and intense optimism, stock prices soared to unsustainable levels before collapsing in late October—erasing billions in market value within days.

Its predictability distinguishes SAD from other forms of depression

Most major depression is "stochastic"—brought on without a clear trigger. SAD—also known as major depression with a seasonal component—is unique in that its onset is predictable. Many of those affected can predict its occurrence accurately within a range of three weeks. This podcast explores this unusual feature of SAD, among other expert takes.

Climate tipping points are irreversible changes to Earth's environment

Earth's natural systems have prevented these events—including the mass death of coral reefs, loss of the Amazon rainforest, and shutdown of Atlantic currents—but scientists believe they are unlikely to withstand continued stressors from climate change.

Read the WEF’s Global Risks Report for 2025

The Global Risks Report is the World Economic Forum’s annual assessment of the most pressing threats facing the world. The 2025 edition highlights declining global optimism, deepening geopolitical and economic tensions, and rising social fragmentation across societies.

Unlike quantum mechanics, classical physics suggests free will does not exist

Models based on Newton's laws of motion suggest all actions are predetermined and must follow specific trajectories and outcomes, such that everything that will ever occur in the future has already been set in motion by past causes. However, quantum mechanics challenges determinism because it is based on probability, where no outcome is certain.

A psychiatrist warns that chasing happiness can lead to misery

Rafa Euba, a retired consultant psychiatrist, argues that happiness is a vague and abstract concept that is hard to quantify. He suggests accepting that suffering and pain are a normal part of life. An attainable goal for one's life is to attempt to minimize pain, and pursue balance and contentment rather than a false ideal of permanent bliss.

Experts predict Republicans will gain seats from mid-decade redistricting in 2026

Analysts expect GOP-led states to net seats through mid-decade redistricting, while Democratic states face greater hurdles due to commissions and legal limits—tilting the likely outcome toward Republican gains in 2026.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

Some renewable energy sources may weaken the resiliency of electric grids by removing outage buffers provided by coal- and natural gas-fired plants, which provide the system with more time to find a new power source if a plant goes down.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

The 2026 Ebola outbreak is hampered by a lack of vaccine against the species of the virus, heightening the need for rapid tests to aid in disease control.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO