US economy….BernankeredStories of America’s rise from the dead have been greatly exaggerated.
As a doom-laden prelude to Ben Bernanke’s keynote speech at the Fed’s Wyoming conference tomorrow, The Slog has learned that the American Bureau of Economic Analysis will revise second quarter 2010 growth downwards from original estimates by around 60%.
“Most people expect the BEA to say that real growth was 1.3 maybe 1.4%” said a New York based executive in a position to know, “but the real figure is nearer 1%”.
Earlier estimates had placed growth at around 2.5%; questions are bound to be asked about the margin of error – especially as the markets’ short-lived optimism was fuelled by the first set of figures.
This morning (EST) Merril Lynch alumni and all-round guru David Rosenberg broke the silence about ‘Depression’, employing the D-word several times as the only conclusion to reach, given the data to hand about the US economy.
The Slog’s view remains simple: if it unemploys, deflates, flatlines and contracts like a depression, the chances are it’s a depression.
The Slog 