Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) said that the U.S. is in a recession now. Speaking on Bloomberg TV yesterday, he argued that “I think we’re in recession already.” He may be right, but it’s impossible to know for sure at the moment. May is the latest full month of published economic data, and those numbers overall reflect growth. There are also a handful of June reports to review—payrolls and the ISM Manufacturing Index, in particular–and they aren’t particularly encouraging. But those two data points alone aren’t smoking guns either for arguing that a recession has started, as I discussed earlier via the links above. As for what the July data will tell us, we’ll have to wait until the reports begin to arrive in a few weeks.