Obama's Mouthpiece: No Threat of Double-Dip
Obama's Former Obama Economic Adviser: Threat of Double Dip Is 1 in 3

Who to believe, who to believe.

Genius economist Jay Carney sees no second recession:

Spokesman Jay Carney says there is no question that economic growth and job creation have slowed over the past half year.

But, Carney told a White House briefing, "We do not believe that there is a threat of a double-dip recession."

By the way, he again blamed the Japan Tsunami for doing all this damage to the economy. Act of God, you see.

Economics professor and former economic adviser to Obama, 2009-2010, Larry Summers,does see a threat.

On the current policy path, it would be surprising if growth were rapid enough to reduce unemployment even to 8.5 percent by the end of 2012. A substantial withdrawal of fiscal stimulus will occur when the payroll tax cuts expire at the end of the year. With growth at less than 1 percent in the first half of this year, the economy is effectively at a stall and facing the prospects of shocks from a European financial crisis that is decidedly not under control, spikes in oil prices and declines in business and household confidence. The indicators suggest that the economy has at least a 1-in-3 chance of falling back into recession if nothing new is done to raise demand and spur growth.

I'm not quoting that for his policy prescriptions or agitation to new government interventions. Just to note he does see a double-dip as pretty darn possible, and thinks even a 8.5% unemployment rate is best case scenario by the elections of 2012.

The old wisdom was that anything higher than 7.5% and you couldn't get reelected. Obama's Optimists tried to change that to 8.0%, to give their man a chance.

Now I guess they'll start spinning 8.5% as the threshold for success.

And I don't even think he'll make that.

Maybe Obama just has to get it back down to 9.0%... yeah, that's the right number. 9.0% feels right.

posted by Ace at 03:49 PM

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