What US recession?

Not all doom and gloom:

Brushing aside conventional wisdom, UCLA economists say California and the nation will survive the housing slump and job losses without plunging into recession -- although it will still be miserable for many Americans.

"We are holding firm: no recession this time," UCLA Anderson Forecast Director Edward Leamer said in a report being released today [December forecast here].

Industrial production growth remains strong, the quarterly report notes, and consumer spending on big-ticket items such as refrigerators is expected to keep climbing -- albeit by just 0.3% this year, from 5% at the end of 2007.

Housing remains the big drag on the economy, UCLA analysts say. But they say the rising tide of foreclosures is related more to falling prices and escalating interest rates than to job losses, which triggered previous spikes in foreclosures.

People "are walking away from their homes in droves not because they lost their jobs but because home prices are falling," Leamer said.

Many prominent economists and institutions, including Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, have already declared the economy to be in recession. That is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of decline in gross domestic product.

UCLA predicts that GDP will dip by 0.4% in the second quarter of this year, but then rebound. Anderson expects GDP to be growing at 2.5% by the end of this year...

Remember, UCLA is a public university, unlike those USC Trojans. And here's some news that may be relevant:

Canada's [January] trade surplus rebounds to 3.3 billion USD

[...]

Canada's trade surplus with the United States, its biggest trading partner, meanwhile, recovered some of its December decline, reaching 6.2 billion dollars, as exports to the United States grew more sharply than imports...

Of course there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. But how will the Democrats cope if it's not the economy, stupid?

Mark C.

Posted by markc at March 11, 2008 08:41 PM