Tomorrow we get told just how bad this recession is, (sorry, was) when we see the National Accounts, which are nothing more than the bookkeeping accounts for the nation. I say ‘was’ because this is a snapshot of the economy across April, May and June.

The National Accounts will show how our economy has grown in terms of the goods and services we produce. It also shows how the country’s income has grown. But for the first time in 30 years, this time we’ll see we haven’t grown but contracted for six months — that’s what an economist calls a recession.

But it’s not how a real person sees it.

To a real person, their job is under pressure or their business is vulnerable, less profitable, making losses or is closed! Interest rates are falling but there are a lot of people who can’t meet their debt repayments so they’re forced to sell their house.

People move back in with mum and dad, some split up, families are under pressure and kids know there’s something wrong with their lives. And for the first time, some people need to turn to charities for help.

This is a recession but the current one is the craziest I’ve ever seen because it was caused by a pandemic that forced governments to close down their economies. But then for the first time ever, governments and central banks got off their usual slow butts and acted swiftly to support people via Jobkeeper and Jobseeker, which has created the less scary recession I’ve ever seen.

That’s not to say the recession-misery I described above isn’t playing out in some families and households. Travel agents (who are living off JobKeeper, have deferred loans and are arguing with landlords) could be thinking that. Anyone who has a huge business deal and loan based on cross-border or internationally focused commerce could be losing sleep and hair.

Right now, it’s a country of contrasts. There are those who are suffering, fearing sustained unemployment or bankruptcy, while others are on the same pay, in safe jobs, working from home, not commuting for over two hours a day and could be looking at this current, crazy recession and thinking: “Bring it on, baby!”

It’s a bit like when the economy is growing in the cities but the rural community is in drought. And right now, this crazy recession is actually good for many suburban economies and businesses, as employees work from home. But if you own a café in Sydney’s CBD, you’re lucky if you have 30% of your old customers showing up for coffee and sandwiches!

Ask these people if they can afford to raise their super payments for their workers who are only in work because of JobKeeper and I think you can guess their answer. It would start with the word “get….”

And JobKeeper is critical to the craziness of this recession. It explains why after retail collapsed by 17.7% in April, as Australia panicked about what a Coronavirus recession would mean for their lives, we went back to shopping big time, such that retail rebounded by the biggest ever 16.3% in May!

The crazy recession actually even brought 11 weeks out of 12 where consumer confidence kept rising. But then Victoria’s need to lockdown again KO’d that confidence uptrend. However, since mid-August, even with Melburnians under lock and key, consumer confidence is coming back!

On August 18, CommSec reported: “The weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence rating rose by 2.4% to 88.6 – the biggest increase in 11 weeks (long-run average since 1990 is 112.7). Sentiment is up by 35.7% since hitting record lows of 65.3 on March 29 (lowest since 1973).”

One week later, the headline was: “Biggest lift in consumer confidence in 3 months!”

Did I say this was a crazy recession? And what about the stock market?

S&P/ASX 200

In the GFC, the first leg down for stocks was November 2007 and there was a small comeback before falling all the way until March 2009, before a rebound started. With this recession-powered crash of stocks, we went down so quickly in a month, like going down in an elevator. But then we caught the same elevator back up! We’re still 16% off where we were before the pandemic call went out but the Yanks’ S&P 500 has wiped out the effects of the virus-created closures, the economic collapse, the 10.2% unemployment, the six million infections now and the 183,000 deaths to actually have the market index higher than the start of all this Coronavirus madness and crazy recession.

And try this for craziness: “75% of companies have reported statutory profits (net profit after tax) for the year to June,” CommSec’s Craig James tells us. “On average over the past decade around 88% of companies have reported a profit rather than a loss. In fact, 92% of the companies that announced interim results for the half year to December 2019 reported a profit.”

We have a dodged the conventional bullet that a recession delivers. And we can thank the governments of Australia for responding sensibly. But going forward, we need to see economic growth pick up so public debt can be eventually repaid and unemployment can be reduced. And critical to that end we have to hope and pray that a vaccine shows up ASAP. It is the best hope for economic normalcy to come creeping back. If it doesn’t show before year’s end, we could see an old fashioned, dare I say ‘sensible or non-crazy’ recession!

Tomorrow’s economic contraction number will be important for confidence. Anything under 7% would be a shot-in-the-arm for those of us who never want any Australian to have to go through a real recession like the one of 1991.