As we’ve reported, things aren’t looking too hot for the US potential for recession. To make matters worse, the US Treasury Department doesn’t seem to understand its own charts:
Oh my God. They really don't know. https://t.co/7iDK0ujRwa
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) December 6, 2025
Oh, and in case they delete the tweet, here’s a screengrab:
US Treasury looking away from potential recession
Now, there’s every chance you’re not understanding what you’re looking at here. Even if that’s true, you’ve probably noted that the last ‘good’ year in the graph is 2020. If you were conscious in 2020, you’ll remember that:
- There was some sort of illness going around.
- It nuked the global economy.
As such, 2020 obviously isn’t a good point of comparison, as people explained:
High bond market returns mean lower economic growth (because bond prices go up when interest rates go down).
So this is Trump's idiotic Treasury Department bragging about hurting the economy with tariffs.
They really are that stupid. https://t.co/eQXwQK0m2m
— Noah Smith
(@Noahpinion) December 6, 2025
High bond yield is a signal of very low market confidence. Bonds are safer but lower yield investments compared to stocks, so if people are turning to treasury bonds over stocks that means investors are scared. This is reflected in the Fear & Greed Index https://t.co/nREf3YtNJ3 pic.twitter.com/9eLRrfoKzH
— BlaqkRat (@RatboneDev) December 6, 2025
The ‘Fear & Greed Index’ is the system which monitors what’s driving the stock market. Given that fear and greed are among the worst human impulses, it doesn’t say much for how we’ve organised our society, does it?
The shadow economy
On 25 November, we reported that the Trump administration has hidden or cancelled multiple financial reports, including the:
- 3rd quarter GDP Advance Estimate.
- Monthly jobs report for October.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Report.
Despite Trump’s best efforts, though, data continues to get out from alternative sources:
The US lost an average of 4k private-sector jobs per month over the last 3 months (ADP data), the first 3-month decline since the 2020 recession. A year ago, we were adding over 200,000 jobs per month.https://t.co/l5IYmkeySJ pic.twitter.com/9Ya4xJqyys
— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) December 3, 2025
The monthly report by human resources firm ADP (Automatic Data Processing) found that US private employers cut 32,000 jobs in the month of November, the latest sign of an accelerating jobs massacre. pic.twitter.com/pdx8trmthj
— Andre Damon (WSWS) (@Andre__Damon) December 4, 2025
We also noted that America is experiencing:
- An AI bubble which could be the biggest bubble in history.
- A growing personal debt crisis fuelled by an affordability crisis.
- A legalised gambling crisis driven by apps which use algorithms to keep people hooked.
- A chaotic tariff regime which has caused all sorts of problems in the global financial system.
- A bizarrely favourable approach to crypto scammers, including pardons for prominent crypto criminals.
The worry now is that when the shit hits the fan, the Treasury Department may not even know that recessions are bad.
Featured image via Roman Boed (Wikimedia)
By Willem Moore
This post was originally published on Canary.