Sunshine Supermen Brian Wesbury and Bob Stein of First Trust Advisors offer a dose of economic optimism:
Rather than being the first of several negative quarters of economic growth, we expect this will be a temporary capitulation to the credit crunch, with almost all of the economic losses postponing economic activity into what will turn out to be a healthy period of growth in the second half of 2009. To be precise, we expect real GDP to be flat in Q1-2009, but then grow at an average annual rate of 3.0% in the final three quarters of next year.
The reason: This sharp drop in growth is due to a temporary drop in velocity due to a true credit crunch with some panic thrown in for good measure. It is not a typical recession caused by fundamental, economy-changing events such as higher tax rates, tighter money, protectionism, or other public policies that stifle innovation or entrepreneurship.
James Schwerdt of CA @ Oct 26, 2008 17:03:22 PM
calvin mast of CA @ Oct 20, 2008 23:42:45 PM
of @ Oct 20, 2008 21:22:25 PM