2017 Economic Forecast: Global Headwinds Look Like Mother of All Storms
By David Haggith
TheGreatRecession.info
March 5, 2017
Headwinds that are starting to assail deep structural flaws in the US and global economies form the basis for my 2017 economic forecast, which looks like an all-out economic crisis building throughout the world. Some of these headwinds are global; some more locally focused within the United States, but that which brings down the US economy wounds the world anyway. Ultimately, global concerns threaten the US, and US concerns threaten the globe. We’re all in this together, even as we seem to be flying apart in political whirlwinds everywhere and fracturing national alliances all over the world.
Even in the US where the Trump Triumph has ignited consumer and business hopes and inflamed the stock market, time is not on Trump’s side. Trump’s own key advisors — like Steve Bannon and Larry Kudlow — have stated unequivocally that Trump’s plans must happen quickly if they are going to save the US economy. Trump, himself, campaigned on the endless refrain that the US economy was rapidly approaching catastrophe. That’s why we needed to elect him. If we take the architects of these hope-inspiring plans at their word, 2017 is a make-or-break year for the US, and the clock is ticking against their success.
Seven headwinds in my 2017 Economic Forecast that will batter the global economy
(In no particular order of severity.)
1. 2017 starts with near-recession-level rates of growth in the US.
2016 US GDP fell to a lower barometric pressure than economists were expecting, skinning their noses for them at an annualized 1.9% rate of growth, and crashing hopes that the third quarter’s sprint to an annualized 3.5% proved the Fed’s economic recovery was solid. (The average expectation for the fourth quarter had been about 2.5%.) The fourth-quarter plunge brought the annual rate of GDP growth down to the lowest its been since the official end of the Great Recession. (Though, as far as I believe, the Great Recession is still a screaming vortex that lies underneath the entire global economy. Its ills have never been healed, only masked.) The services industries took a fall in February that was sharper than its January rise. That appears to mark the end of upward growth that began last September.
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