Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Report Says We Won't Have A Recession This Year

The article is Economy weak but not enough for recession: report. A recession means that we have two straight quarters of falling real GDP (a quarter is 3 months). But this forecast says that real GDP will grow 1.5% this year (even though it is projected to fall for one quarter). Unemployment is projected to be 5.3% this year and 5.6% next year. This not good news, but 5.6% is well below the average unemployment rate of the 1970s as well as the 1980s (6.21% & 7.27%, respectively). But if oil keeps going up (now $108 per barrell), we could have stagflation, meaning rising inflation at the same time we high have unemployment.

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