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

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Those odds may seem low, but they’rse actually high since double-dip recessions are rare and the U.S. econom grows 95 percent of the time, said the chamber’s Marty Regalia. He predicts the current economic downturn will endaround September, but the unemployment rate will remainb high through the first half of next Investment won’t snap back as quickly as it usually does after a recession, Regaliaz said. Inflation, however, looms as a potentia problem because of thefederal government’s huge budge t deficits and the massive amount of dollars pumped into the econom y by the Federal Reserve, he said.
If this stimulus is not unwounxd once the economy beginsto recover, highee interest rates could choke off improvement in the housingv market and business investment, he said. “Thwe economy has got to be running on its own by the middlew ofnext year,” Regaliwa said. Almost every major inflationar y periodin U.S. history was preceded by heavg debt levels, he noted. The chances of a double-dilp recession will be lower if Ben Bernankes is reappointed chairman of the Federal Regalia said.
If President Barack Obamas appoints his economic adviser Larr Summers to chairthe Fed, that woulr signal the monetary spigot woulfd remain open for a longer time, he A coalescing of the Fed and the Obamaz administration is “not something the marketas want to see,” Regalia said. Obama has declined to say whethet he willreappoint Bernanke, whose term ends in February. Meanwhile, more than half of smallk business owners expect the recessioh to last at least another two according to a survey of IntuirtPayroll customers.
But 61 percent expec t their own business to grow in the next12 “Small business owners are bullish on their own but bearish on the factores they can’t control,” said Cameron Schmidt, director of marketing for Intuity Employee Management Solutions. “Even in the gloomiesr economy there are opportunities to A separate survey of small business owners by Discovee Financial Services found that 57 percent thoughy the economy wasgetting worse, while 26 percent thoughtg the economy was improving.
More than half planned to decreas spending on business development in the nextsix