Check out the bearish Coach CEO using the “R” word.
 
While some retail executives … we’re talking to you, Pier 1 CFO Cary Turner … blame the media for continuing to talk about recession, Lew Frankfort admitted what many economists are already saying.
 
“My view is that we’re already in a consumer recession,” the Coach chief executive told Reuters. “We do need a tax stimulus package.”
 
Pegging a recession is dicey business. The National Bureau of Economic Research determines when a recession starts — but that finding usually is not made until several months after it starts. (An explanation can be found here.)
 
That is why the U.S. economy could already be in a recession, without us knowing about it. And Frankfort isn’t the only one who thinks this is a recession.
 
For example, on Tuesday, Bill Gross, chief investment officer of PIMCO, who manges the world’s biggest bond fund, also said the economy was probably in a recession that began in December.
 
“It’s simply now a consumer-led mild recession that will show up in the first- and second-quarter GDP numbers in the negative — with a minus sign,” Gross said.
 
Also in the basket:
 
“Comfort foods” to resist U.S. slowdown: PepsiCo CEO
 
Constellation to sell Almaden, Inglenook brands 
 
(Reuters photo: Frankfort in a happier time)