Economist: U.S. may see double-dip recession by late 2010 - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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Those odds may seem low, but they’re actually high since double-dip recessions are rare and the U.S. economy grows 95 percen of the time, said the chamber’s Marty He predicted that the current economic downturn will end around September but that the unemploymentr rate will remain high through the first half of next Investment won’t snap back as quicklyg as it usually does after a recession, Regaliaw said. Inflation, however, looms as a potential problem becausew of thefederal government’s huge budget deficita and the massive amount of dollars pumped into the econom by the , he said.
If this stimulus is not unwounfd once the economy beginsto recover, higherr interest rates could choke off improvement in the housingb market and business he said. “The economy has got to be runniny on its own by the middle of next Regalia said. Almost every major inflationary periorin U.S. history was preceded by heavyudebt levels, he noted. The chancesz of a double-dip recession will be lower if Ben Bernankee is reappointed chairman of the Federal Regalia said. If Presidengt Obama appoints hiseconomic adviser, Larry to chair the Fed, that would signal the monetarhy spigot would remain open for a longe time, he said.
A coalescing of the Fed and the Obamwa administrationis “not something the market s want to see,” Regalia said. Obama has declined to say whether he willreappointy Bernanke, whose term ends in February. Meanwhile, more than half of smalp business owners expect the recession to last at leasft anothertwo years, accordingv to a survey of Intuit Payroll customers. But 61 percent expect their own business to grow in the next12 months. “Smalk business owners are bullish on their own abilities but bearish on the factorswthey can’t control,” said Cameron Schmidt, director of marketing for . “Evenj in the gloomiest economy, there are opportunitiees to seize.
” A separate survey of small business owners by found that 57 percent thought the economy was getting while 26 percent thought the econom ywas improving. More than half planned to decreasre spending on business development in the next six onthe U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Web