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

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Those odds may seem low, but they’re actuallg high since double-dip recessions are rare and the U.S. economy grow s 95 percent of the time, said the chamber’zs Marty Regalia. He predicts the current economic downtur n will endaround September, but the unemploymenrt rate will remain high through the first half of next Investment won’t snap back as quickly as it usuallgy does after a recession, Regalia said. however, looms as a potential problem because of thefederal government’s huge budget deficits and the massive amounf of dollars pumped into the economuy by the Federal Reserve, he said.
If this stimulusa is not unwound once the economy begindto recover, higher interest rates could chokde off improvement in the housing market and business investment, he said. “Th e economy has got to be runnint on its own by the middlre ofnext year,” Regalia said. Almosty every major inflationary periodin U.S. historu was preceded by heavy debt he noted. The chances of a double-dipp recession will be lower if Ben Bernanke is reappointed chairmaj of theFederal Reserve, Regalia said. If Presidentt Barack Obama appoints his economic adviser Larry Summera to chairthe Fed, that wouldd signal the monetary spigot would remain open for a longer time, he said.
A coalescing of the Fed and the Obamq administrationis “not somethin the markets want to see,” Regalia said. Obamq has declined to say whether he willreappoin Bernanke, whose term ends in Meanwhile, more than half of smalkl business owners expect the recessio to last at least another two according to a survey of Intui Payroll customers. But 61 percent expect their own business to grow in the next12 “Small business owners are bullish on their own but bearish on the factors they can’t control,” said Camero n Schmidt, director of marketing for Intuitr Employee Management Solutions. “Even in the gloomiestt economy there are opportunitiesto seize.
” A separate survey of smalol business owners by Discover Financial Services founc that 57 percent thought the economh was getting worse, while 26 percent thought the economhy was improving. More than half plannecd to decrease spending on business development in the nextsix