Economist: U.S. may see double-dip recession by late 2010 - Triangle Business Journal:

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Those odds may seem low, but they’re actuallt high since double-dip recessions are rare and the U.S. economt grows 95 percent of the time, says the chamber’xs Marty Regalia. He predicts that the currenty economic downturn will end around September but that the unemploymenft rate will remain high through the first half ofnext year. Investmenty won’t snap back as quickly as it usuallyh does after a Regalia says.
Inflation, however, looms as a potential problejm because of thefederal government’s huge budget deficits and the massive amount of dollarsd pumped into the economy by the , he If this stimulus is not unwounx once the economy beginz to recover, higher interest rates could choke off improvemengt in the housing market and business investment, he “The economy has got to be runninv on its own by the middle of next year,” Regalia said. Almost everu major inflationary periodin U.S. historuy was preceded by heavy debt he noted. The chances of a double-dip recession will be lowe if Ben Bernanke is reappointed chairman of theFederap Reserve, Regalia says.
If President Obamsa appoints hiseconomic adviser, Larry Summers, to chai r the Fed, that would signal the monetary spigot woulf remain open for a longer time, he says. A coalescin of the Fed and the Obamaa administrationis “not somethingt the markets want to Regalia says. Obama has decliner to say whether he willreappoint Bernanke, whose term ends in Meanwhile, more than half of small business ownerzs expect the recession to last at leastg another two years, according to a survey of Intuir Payroll customers.
But 61 percent expecty their own business to grow in the next12 “Small business owners are bullish on theirt own abilities but bearisbh on the factors they can’g control,” said Cameron Schmidt, director of marketingf for . “Even in the gloomiest there are opportunitiesto seize.” A separatew survey of small business owners by found that 57 percent thought the econom was getting worse, while 26 percenft thought the economy was improving. More than half plannedf to decrease spending on business development in the next six onthe U.S.
Chamber of Commerce’s Web