hardening landing

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Dec 21 16:37:17 PST 2000


John Gulick wrote:


>As Henwood would insist,
>forecasting recession is an art, not a science (or perhaps more akin to
>divining entrails), but I'm curious, what are LBO-listers' speculations
>and projections ? What with the global economy being propped up by U.S.
>consumer spending, now certain to nosedive as on-line shoppers can no longer
>use their stock portfolios as collateral for their credit card accounts,
>and the likely plunge of the dollar as the out-of-whack U.S. balance of
>payments-to-GDP ratio too must "correct" itself sooner or later, I can't
>help but thinking the next recession will be a _big-time_ purgative
>devaluation of values.

Could be. My line has long been that the recession will settle the question of whether the last 10-20 years was a real profitability/productivity recovery or just a financial bubble nurtured by statistical illusions. I see no point in predicting it, though.

Doug



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