Daily Pulse: China's Maybe Recession, Facebook's Daily Billion, Middle Managers in Depression

China isn’t just going to slow down, it’s going into recession. The bold assertion comes from Citigroup’s top economist, Willem Buiter, who recommends fiscal stimulus to boost domestic demand. Reminder: Beijing has set a target of 7% growth this year, which is already low by China’s historical standards and which is also unlikely to be met. Buiter currently estimates China’s true rate of expansion at 4.5%, a harsh assessment compared with an economists’ consensus at 6.3% for the first half of the year. Once “mendacious official data” drops to 4% growth, he says, you can consider that a recession. And that means global growth would fall below 2% – “which is in my definition a global recession.” (It’s not actually, per the dictionary, but pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to.)

The problem with stimulus is China’s already done that, back in 2008. Local governments and state-backed enterprises launched massive and unnecessary infrastructure projects, just for the sake of creating jobs. Now the country’s massively indebted and taking on more debt is not a popular proposition.

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This is why you don’t sell in a rout. If you’re still paying attention, Asian markets are getting close to erasing their losses from the week. Chinese stocks are up for a second day, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had its largest two-day rally since 2008.

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#Stat

1 billion

People who used Facebook on Monday, August 24.
It’s the first time the site reaches 1 billion daily active users.  

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Why so square? Instagram now lets you upload photos as they were created – rectangular. The company says one in 5 photos on Instagram didn’t originate as a square image, and it realizes cropping can be a painful sacrifice. The cynics at Quartz suggest the move was probably prompted by the arrival of advertising on Instagram, which includes cinematic (read: horizontal) videos. (You should follow us, by the way.)

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Middle managers have it worst. Nearly 1 in 5 (!) reported symptoms of depression in a study by Columbia University, versus just 12% and 11%, respectively, of blue-collar wokers and owners/executives. That’s because, like the middle child, the middle manager is stuck in an uncomfortable position: the responsibility of being in charge without the freedom of being at the top of the food chain. In academia speak, that’s called “contradictory-class location.”

“Employees in the middle have dual roles that embody aspects of ownership and front-line labor, without the full benefits of being one or the other—they get flak from above and below.”
- Seth Prins, a doctoral student at Columbia University and lead author of the study, to The Atlantic

What’s more, Prins says, front-line labor are more likely to have social support (think unions and a collective work experience), a key element in promoting mental health, while management is a more solitary career path. Managers, unite!

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Missed the last update? Then check out John C. Abell's 'A Big Win for Franchise Workers, Tesla is Perfect, Trouble at Amazon's Lab126'

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Photo: Construction workers on a building in the new Yujiapu financial district, in Tianjin, in northern China. The massive government project, sometimes described as China's answer to Manhattan, incorporates dozens of skyscrapers and is being built in the hope of becoming one of the world's largest financial centers. But a slowdown in China's economy has raised doubts about the viability of such large scale projects, and some reports have described the district as a 'ghost town'. GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images