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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and life.

My name is Freddie Gray. I'm the deputy editor of the Spectator.

I am delighted to be joined by Kate Andrews, our economics editor, and Mark Asquith,

who is a fund manager, who recently wrote a excellent article that did very well on the

Spectator website, saying that he thought inflation was over.

And that's what we're going to be talking about. But first of all, Kate, I just wanted to come to you on the sort of the economic story of the week from America, which is that the Biden administration appears to be getting quite a lot of flack over the fact that it's redefined recession. Recession,

I understand, used to mean technically two quarters of consecutive negative growth and no longer

does. Kate, were you surprised by the Biden administration doing this? Well, not terribly

surprised because the last thing the Biden administration wants to have to say out loud is the R word. They don't want to admit that the U.S. is going into recession or, frankly, in recession

under their watch. But this is really a semantics debate. As you say, Fred, many are saying the

technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth, but it's being pointed out that officially

the National Bureau of Economic Research declares a recession in the United States, and they haven't

done so yet, and it's thought that they may not do so because the labor market is so tight,

so looking at other factors will play into their decision as to whether or not they're going to technically define a recession. I mean, my response to all of this is almost so what.

Americans are dealing with close to double-digit inflation. They're dealing with interest rate hikes. They've dealt with two consecutive quarters of negative growth. There may be more to come.

So your average American is certainly going to feel like they're in recession.

And frankly, I think that's what matters.

Is it simplistic of me to think that, while obviously not welcome, a recession might be the only way of getting inflation under control?

Some will make that argument. I think I just take a step back and, you know, look at the situation that we've been in,

and I think it's, to some extent, inevitable.

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