Posted on 01/12/2009 6:04:44 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
anuary 12, 2009
Leading economist fears decade of weakness in US
Suzy Jagger in New York
One of the world's leading economists has given warning that the United States is facing a decade of financial misery, with the number of unemployed Americans set to continue to rise for years.
Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, who predicted the end of the internet bubble seven years ago, said: “We could have many years of a very weak economy. Big recessions are followed by years of weakness and typically unemployment keeps rising.
“To say that this will last years is not a dramatic statement. What is happening now is much worse than 1990. We could be facing a decade of real weakness.
“This is no ordinary recession. There are signs that people see this as a different story. People are talking about a depression, something that we haven't seen previously.”
Professor Shiller's comments come as the unemployment rate in America is rising astonishingly fast.
Last week official figures showed that the US lost 524,000 jobs in December, with the overall unemployment rate rising to 7.2 per cent — the highest level for 16 years.
With about 11.1 million people out of a job, the total number of unemployed is about 50 per cent higher than a year ago.
Some economists, such as Kenneth Rogoff, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and now a Professor of Economics at Harvard University, believe that America will be lucky if unemployment peaks at 9 per cent of the workforce and that there is a high chance that it will reach at least 10 per cent.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.timesonline.co.uk ...
Alabama gets more money than Michigan...you know.
Didn’t Japan go through more than a decade of decline? Anyone have a long term chart of the NIKKEI (sp) Index?
Great nations are not defeated. They commit suicide.
Good point; and a perusal of the news on any day of the week will reveal that America is doing precisely that - committing suicide.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.