If it feels to you like every important economy besides the US (and India) is in a recession, it’s not your imagination.

China doesn’t meet the technical definition, but Xi Jinping’s struggling with deflation, domestic demand’s anemic and local equities are on state life support. It’s a “recession with Chinese characteristics,” to adopt and adapt Party lingo. Germany’s in an intractable malaise and the worst commercial real estate downturn since the financial crisis could make things considerably worse, according to some observers.

That covers the second- and fourth- largest economies in the world. Actually, the second and third. Germany, despite its intractable “slow-cession,” is now the third-largest economy, because according to data released Thursday, Japan’s in a recession. The 0.4% contraction for Q4 means the Japanese economy is now smaller than Germany’s.

Household consumption slipped a third straight quarter, and non-residential investment likewise.

I’m not sure how economists typically fare when it comes to predicting top-tier Japanese macro data, but I can only assume their performance history in Japan is similar to their track record everywhere else, which is to say abysmal. Even by those low standards, forecasters were way off on this release. Just one out of three-dozen predicted a recession. Consensus saw a 1% expansion for Q4.

More important than Japan’s descent down the global GDP league tables is the read-through from Thursday’s data for the BoJ, which is now poised to implement the first rate hike in over 15 years into the teeth of a recession. Bad optics won’t stop them, but this does increase the odds of a policy mistake, which in turn means Kazuo Ueda is set up for embarrassment.

Since taking the reins from Haruhiko Kuroda, Ueda’s implemented a series of tweaks to the BoJ’s yield-curve control regime in an effort to lay the groundwork for a step-by-step, deliberate dismantling of the world’s last remaining experiment in ultra-accommodative monetary policy. There are still questions as to whether recent wage gains and the inflation impulse from pandemic and war effects are together sufficient to break the deflationary mindset in Japan. A recession underlines those questions and makes it more difficult to answer them in the affirmative. Then again (and this is important), the lackluster read on personal consumption plainly suggests inflation’s eroding consumers’ purchasing power. This is a “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” situation for policymakers.

Meanwhile, the UK’s in a recession too. ONS on Thursday said the economy shrank 0.3% in Q4. Economists, bless their hearts, missed that one too.

Q3’s top-line figure was unrevised (a 0.1% contraction), which means the technical threshold is met. And although this counts a shallow downturn, it’s less amenable to being waved away than it would’ve been had the headline print matched consensus, which called for another marginal contraction (i.e., a second straight -0.1% print).

The data comes on the heels of a CPI release which at least suggested things didn’t get worse on the inflation front in January. The BoE is grappling with when to cut rates. Markets are looking for three(ish) reductions this year. Thursday’s GDP release isn’t likely to move the needle much either way, but it does underscore the notion that the UK’s still suffering from stagflation. Not great politically if you’re Rishi Sunak.

ONS tried to talk the recession away. “The concept of a ‘technical’ recession includes two or more consecutive quarters of contracting output [but] most experts consider other factors… such as the depth, diffusion and duration of the change in GDP,” the color accompanying Thursday’s release read. “Also note that early estimates of GDP are subject to revision.” (Thanks for that.)