WSJ Consensus Economic Forecast

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124708099206913393-lMyQjAxMDI5NDE3MjAxODIwWj.html

While the timing isn't always exact, the WSJ usually surveys their panel of highly regarded economists for a consensus forecast after the close of every business quarter. The current survey was performed from 7/2 thru 7/7. The data and comments from that survey are referenced above - if your "click on" doesn't get you to it, you can find it as an attachment to Phil Izzo's 7/10/09 WSJ article summarizing the findings.

I was delighted to find that only 8 of the 51 economists responding said more stimulus was necessary! This is a perfect follow up to our prior "blog" where we pointed out that both Krugman and Warren Buffet thought MORE stimulus was needed. (My thought here is that they both would have wanted the Obama economic team to have proposed a much larger stimulus in the first place!) Let's choose up sides - I'll take Buffet and Krugman and anybody else can take the 51 economist consensus (or, rather, the 43 who think further stimulus isn't necessary). It's an important debate but politically there's no chance of another stimulus right now and President Obama has rightly pointed out that his stimulus is 4 months into a program that is designed to impact over a two year period. So, neither he, nor the Democratic party will push for more.

Getting into the survey itself, the economists see the just ended second quarter as the last one with a negative GDP growth rate (-1.6%), forecasting that the next four quarters will grow at from .9% (Q3) to 2.7% (Q2 - 2010). You can see that sequenced and by which economist is forecasting what by going to the survey data summary tabs.

I'll go with Alan Sinai (of Decision Economics) who said that he sees "The mother of all jobless recoveries...coming down the pike." Those economists who project that unemployment could still be in double digits by 2011 will probably be right unless something more gets done by the fall of 2010...