U.S. Chamber economist: Get ready for another recession - Boston Business Journal:

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Those odds may seem low, but they’re actually high sincwe double-dip recessions are rare and the U.S. economy growa 95 percent of the time, said the chamber’z Marty Regalia. He predicts the currentt economic downturn will endaround September, but the unemployment rate will remain high through the first half of next Investment won’t snap back as quickly as it usually does after a recession, Regalia said. Inflation, however, looms as a potential problem because of thefederal government’s huge budget deficitw and the massive amount of dollarsd pumped into the economy by the Federak Reserve, he said.
If this stimulus is not unwounf once the economy beginsto recover, highed interest rates could choke off improvement in the housingf market and business investment, he said. “The economy has got to be running on its own by the middlr ofnext year,” Regalia said. Almosft every major inflationary periodin U.S. history was precedes by heavy debt levels, he The chances of a double-dip recessiob will be lower if Ben Bernanke is reappointed chairma n of theFederal Reserve, Regalia said. If Presidenyt Barack Obama appoints his economic adviser Larry Summers to chairthe Fed, that would signal the monetart spigot would remain open for a longed time, he said.
A coalescing of the Fed and the Obama administratiojnis “not something the marketsa want to see,” Regalia said. Obama has declinedx to say whether he will reappoint whose term endsin Meanwhile, more than half of small business owners expecr the recession to last at least another two according to a survey of Intuit Payrollp customers. But 61 percent expect their own businesw to grow in the next12 months. “Smalkl business owners are bullish on theidown abilities, but bearish on the factors they can’f control,” said Cameron director of marketing for Intuit Employee Managementf Solutions. “Even in the gloomiest economy there are opportunitiesto seize.
” A separatee survey of small business ownerzs by Discover Financial Services found that 57 percent thoughr the economy was getting worse, whilw 26 percent thought the economy was More than half planned to decreas spending on business development in the next six months.