"The guardians of global growth are putting on a brave face, but after years in the doldrums the world economy is still in serious jeopardy. Two pre-eminent forecasters - the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund - have just issued their semi-annual global report cards and both stoically predict recovery. Unfortunately, we have heard it all before. Back in November 2001, the OECD predicted the world economy would rebound by mid 2002. Instead it floundered."
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"Both the IMF and OECD forecasts assume the US economy is about to fire. The world's economic superpower makes up more than a fifth of the global economy and accounted for more than 60 per cent of cumulative increase in world GDP between 1995 and 2001. With Europe and Japan showing little sign of rousing from their recent torpor, the world again needs the US to lead the way. But US economic data is not reassuring. There are fresh fears the US is flirting with a recession, not a rebound. It was revealed over the weekend that the US grew at an annualised rate of just 1.6 per cent in the first quarter of this year, only a slight improvement on the lifeless 1.4 per cent registered in the December quarter. Hopes that American businesses are investing again were dashed, with non-residential fixed investment plunging 4.2 per cent in the March quarter. Almost half a million American jobs were lost in February and March and jobless claims continued to rise in April, according to figures released late last week. "We can't really afford to witness any further deterioration in the [US jobless] claims data," Deutsche Bank warned last week. "If we do, the risk is that the associated job losses will begin to enter the region where recession becomes a possibility." Manufacturing and services industry data have also moved into negative territory, to levels similar to those reached in the recession of 2001."
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http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/27/1051381847791.html