Above are the results of a poll of economic forecasts from The Titans of Wall Street in the most recent issue of the
Economist. As someone who has been bearish on America's economic prospects in 2007 for reasons described by famous bears like
Nouriel Roubini and
Bill Fleckenstein (who correctly predicted this year's subprime mortgage carnage), I doubt whether the US will manage even the least optimistic predicted GDP growth of 2.0% this year. As Fleckenstein points out, nearly universally bad data nowadays may foreshadow poor results. Worse yet, as America goes, so may the rest of the world--US underperformance will likely pull the rest down as consumer demand slows Stateside. I may be wrong; heck, I may even
want to be proven wrong. In any event, take note of the differences in their forecasts now and at the start of the year (see below). Wall Street has even bumped up its average expectation for the US a touch despite the onset of housing Chernobyl; we'll see...
