Output slowed to stall speed over the winter. The US economy tipped into
outright contraction in the second quarter, even before facing the "fiscal
cliff" later this year – tightening of $600bn or 4pc of GDP unless
action is taken to stop it.
Nothing serious is yet being done to head off the downward slide. If ECRI is
right, the implications for the global system are ugly.
It is never easy to read the signals at inflexion points. Washington is always
caught off guard. As ECRI’s Lakshman Achuthan says, it took the Lehman
collapse ten months into recession in September 2008 to "wake people up".
What we know is that retail sales rolled over in February and broader trade
sales peaked in December. Industrial output peaked in April. The nationwide
ISM index of manufacturing crashed through the break-even line of 50 in
June, just as it did at the onset of the Great Recession in late 2007, but
this time at a faster paceRead more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9401574/Fed-fiddles-as-America-slides-back-into-recession.html
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