According to Dean Baker of the CEPR, “Economists almost never forecast recessions. I happened to get a copy of the “Blue Chip” top 50 forecasters projections for 2001, dated Sept. 2000. Not one forecaster in this group projected a recession. In fact, the lowest growth projected by any of them for 2001 was 2.4 percent. Keep in mind, the stock market had already begun to unravel at that point, so it shouldn’t have been too hard to imagine that there would be some economic impact.”
The above is amazing! We had a 2000-2001 recession, and NOT one of these guys realized it, even though there were already IN the recession! It just blows my mind.
A few economists, as well as Bill Fleckenstein and Barry Ritholtz, are predicting recessions, and the signs are there if you look at the leading indicators (see my thread on leading indicators based on Elliott’s work), but which of the mainstream economists are predicting this recession?
