Word: slowdowns
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What's the difference between a business slowdown, a so-called growth recession and a real recession (classically defined as two consecutive quarters or more of negative growth)? Through most of the increasingly boomy 1990s, American businessmen, workers and consumers by and large would have answered, Who cares? None of the three versions of economic contraction registered even as blips on the national radar screen. But brace yourself: it may be time to make those painful distinctions. The consensus of TIME's Board of Economists, which convened recently in Manhattan to assess the outlook through next year, is that...
...late 1997 and early 1998, when growth rates ranged between 3.0% and 5.5% annually, and the sag is virtually certain to continue into next year. Given the continuing spread of the global financial crisis, from which the U.S. can no longer stay immune, "there must be a big slowdown," says Allen Sinai, chief global economist of Primark Decision Economics, a major forecasting firm. And next year, if the board's majority opinion is correct, the slowdown should cross the line into a growth recession. That is usually defined as a continuing increase in national output of goods and services...
What a time for a work slowdown. The First Lady may not be able to save the President the way she saved the candidate, but she surely will hurt him if she doesn't stand by him once again, and not like some potted plant. Within days after the Lewinsky scandal broke, Hillary was on the Today show shouting her husband's praises. But for weeks now, there have been only perfunctory remarks during icy cameo appearances, bad body language and her failure to refer to the President with her usual "my husband" at a Moscow event...
...percent in the April-June quarter. But if it doesn't worry Alan Greenspan, it shouldn't worry you. "This is exactly what economists were hoping for: The beginnings of a soft landing," says TIME business reporter Bernard Baumohl. "The Asian crisis is starting to hit us, and a slowdown was inevitable. This one, especially balanced with the abnormally high first quarter...
...Certainly the slowdown, caused in great part by the GM strike, should spare the Fed any worries about inflation or having to raise interest rates. But with the July effects of the just-settled strike counting toward next quarter, experts are predicting more of the same for July-September. Is it time to start crying recession? Baumohl doubts it. "So many other indicators, such as consumer spending and new equipment purchasing, are still strong. There isn't much out there that's alarming." If a recession does come, it will come unannounced...