On February 9th I posted a CBO report stating that without the stimulus package, America was track to begin rebounding out of this recession by the latter half of 2009.
CBO anticipates that the current recession, which started in December 2007, will last until the second half of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II.
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CBO expects the economy to begin a slow recovery in the second half of 2009 and to grow by a modest 1.5 percent in 2010.
So when I saw the numbers in this report from Reuters yesterday there was a bell going off telling me that I’d heard this somewhere before.
The recession-hit U.S. economy is proving weaker than economists expected just a month ago, but forecasters still think a recovery is in the cards for later this year, a survey released on Tuesday showed.
Consumer spending and residential investment are expected to turn positive and begin boosting GDP growth in the third quarter of this year,” the newsletter Blue Chip Economic Indicators said, summarizing its survey of private economists.
The consensus of the 51 forecasters surveyed looks for U.S. gross domestic product to tumble at a sharp 5.3 percent annual rate in the first quarter and to decline at a 2 percent pace in the second quarter.
In the third quarter, however, economists expect the economy to expand at a 0.5 percent rate, followed by a 1.8 percent fourth-quarter gain.
So when the ZMSM starts singing the praises of the Obamessiah from the rooftops, do try and point out that people who were actually paying attention during the so called “debate” on the so called “Stimulus Packacge” knew that this would happen without having to kick-start inflation.