US economy turning?

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Jan 3 09:22:56 PST 2002


Seth Ackerman wrote:


>Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> [The bourgie consensus is now that the U.S. economy is bottoming, or
>> has already bottomed, and is about to turn up, perhaps strongly. The
>> leftie consensus is that it's only begun worsening. Hmmm.]
>
>So far no one has successfully refuted Wynne Godley's argument that the
>financial imbalance in the US private sector will prevent any real recovery.
>
>The private sector is running a deficit of almost 6%.

Yes, I've made those arguments myself. And there was yesterday's WSJ article on how U.S. consumers have been increasing their debt during the recession, unlike earlier cycles, when they had temporary outbreaks of prudence. But...things have been tending this way for so long, against increasing odds, so who knows where the limit is?

Doug



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