I expect that today will be a bargain-hunting day after last week’s utter disaster. Which won’t change the fundamental reality of impending doom:
Gloomy forecasts from the IMF today: Developed economies will shrink by 0.3 percent next year, the first collective contraction since 1945. More analysis from the WSJ’s economics blog: The U.S. forecast was cut to 1.4% growth this year and a 0.7% contraction in 2009, down from last month’s estimates for growth rates of 1.6% in 2008 and 0.1% in 2009.
Luckily, the Democrats have a response: economically disasterous protectionism that is already pissing off our European and Asian allies and a domestic program that we’ve known for years is mathematically guaranteed to fail:
Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After scrutinizing Roosevelt’s record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years. “Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,” said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA’s Department of Economics. “We found that a relapse isn’t likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies.”
I guess those of us who talked in sweeping terms about the decline of the “Western financial world” and the challenges to “the entire Western tradition” were a little over dramatic. Or under dramatic. Which one is the one where you’re not quite panicked enough?
UPDATE: Sophistication!
References:
* Post-Election Blues Sink Wall Street [CBS]
* Advanced economies to shrink for the first time since WWII [FP Passport]
* Actually “The World” Is Kind Of Unhappy With Obama [MR]
* FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate [UCLA Newsroom]
Previously:
* Global And Domestic Markets Responding To Obama Election With Something Less Than Elation
* European Anti-Semites Pretty Psyched About Impending Obama Victory
* Israeli Newspapers Not Very Hopeful About Impending Change In US-Israel Alliance
