Two entirely different things.

Because of the influx of illegals (and not all are hispanic), there is a dire need to protect our borders as much as possible. And not just because of the illegals looking for a better life, crossing over. But for the one's who come from other countries, and get a Mexican visa to visit. And then infiltrate the US border for terroristic or other reasons. A country cannot be soveriegn unless it protects it's borders. And controls who gets to immigrate into the country. And illegals already cost us upwards of $150billion/year. Both in welfare and lost taxes. I'll take the $5billion wall. Not to mention the number of jobs that could be held by Americans, but are given to illegals because they are willing to accept a lower pay. Which suppresses the labor market.

Recession, based on trade, is a whole nother concept. And also based on different ideals. Every technology that is sent to China to manufacture for US use, is stolen and copied by the Chinese. So that they can manufacture the same technology cheaper. And also market it to other countries around the world.  So it degrades our realistic value on technology that we have developed. Best we cut them off from the freeflow of technology that they can't develop on their own.

And welcome to commodities. A trading land where it doesn't matter which direction a market might move. We can still make money from it.

The wall is, at this point, entirely political symbolism.

5 billion vs 1.6 billion when talking about trillions?  Both sides choose to dig in on this?

If I were the Dems I'd let Trump have his wall and get something for it in return.  Heck, I'd even let him put his name in giant gold plated letters on it.  He likes that kind of stuff.

(NTR, I think)

It's a difficult subject in which to remain TR,  but I did not want to let the opportunity pass to tell you agree with you.

I'm having a lot of trouble getting my head around the choice between a wall and a recession. Is it really one or the other?

My thoits are with what were seeing out of many leading indicators a government shutdown would just anout lock in  a recession and do people  think it's worth it 

Which leading indicators?  Certainly not this one.

https://www.conference-board.org/data/bcicountry.cfm?cid=1

Housing starts and more so, Permits, weigh heavily on leading indicators, and after several soft months, we are seeing solid signs of life.

https://us.econoday.com/byshoweventfull.asp?fid=485722&cust=us&year=2018&lid=0&prev=/byweek.asp#top

St this point a one off month lead by multifamily  starts and permits that was revised down for last month almost as much as it was above the guess for this month. Add to it durable goods and empire  manufacturing  and it looks like the sugar high from the 1% ers  tax cuts that did nothing but add a chitpile of debt to this country and well most can guess what is heading down the pike

Have you looked at MFG for the last 18 months or so, or are you just using one month of data while attempting to accuse me of relying on one month?

I base it off the trend of the Industrial production and capacity utilization index,  which has been trending in the wrong direction starting in Aug for sure and one could argue that it goes back to July. The  mining  sector  ( oil and gas in particular) has been trying to keep it growing  but the trend is not been friendly. 

Industrial production is a small snap shot that includes utilities.  Energies have been taking it on the chin.  MFG, inventories, hiring, etc,  etc have been very positive.   But if you want to base your decisions on what you are looking at,  it's up to you.