Word: board
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...board members have some differences about the outlook. Eckstein thinks the recession will last only two quarters; Robert Nathan, a Washington economic consultant, fears that it may stretch out over as many as four. The consensus is two or perhaps three quarters. Eckstein calculates that corporate profits after taxes will rise only 5% next year, vs. 14% in 1978-and will go up even that modestly only because the tax rate on most corporate income will drop from 48% to 46% on Jan. 1. Arthur Okun, senior fellow at Washington's Brookings Institution, put the increase even after taxes...
...most details, however, board members' forecasts are remarkably close...
...Board of Economists has a good record of prognostication for previous years, but any forecast is subject to error. The most President Carter will concede is that real G.N.P. growth next year may fall below his official target of 3%. The Administration script calls for a "soft landing"-two or three quarters in which output gains are small but nonetheless real. High interest rates, in the opinion of Carter's advisers, no longer bite down as hard on business activity as they once did, and so far there are no signs of the imbalances, like a pile...
Heller excepted, members of the Board of Economists reply: 1) the soft-landing outcome is possible, but unlikely; 2) even if it does happen, so what? Real G.N.P. may not decline for two successive quarters-the technical definition of recession-but it will slow to such a crawl as to bring about a substantial rise in unemployment. Says Washington University Professor Murray Weidenbaum: "If it isn't a recession, it will still feel like...
...economists on the TIME board fear that their forecast may be too optimistic. Eckstein sees a 1-in-5 chance that frenzied borrowing, and buying of houses and other goods by consumers before prices go up even more, would continue to keep expansion rolling through much of next year. It would be nothing to cheer about, he adds, because inflation would continue to accelerate and the Government would have to press down even harder on the economy. Result: a recession that does not start until late 1979 but is then worse than anybody now foresees, lasting for as many...