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

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Those odds may seem low, but they’re actually high since double-dip recessions are rare and the U.S. economt grows 95 percent of the time, said the chamber’sd Marty Regalia. He predicts the current economic downturnm will endaround September, but the unemployment rate will remain high through the first half of next year. Investment won’gt snap back as quickly as it usuallyu does aftera recession, Regalia said. Inflation, however, loomzs as a potential problem because of the federal government’s huge budget deficits and the massive amouny of dollars pumped into the economy by the Federalp Reserve, he said.
If this stimulu is not unwound once the economty beginsto recover, higher interest rates couldf choke off improvement in the housing market and businese investment, he said. “The economy has got to be runningt on its own by the middlee ofnext year,” Regalia Almost every major inflationary period in U.S. history was preceded by heavy debt he noted. The chances of a double-di p recession will be lower if Ben Bernanke is reappointerd chairman of theFederal Reserve, Regalia said. If Presiden t Barack Obama appoints his economic advise r Larry Summers to chairthe Fed, that would signao the monetary spigot would remaij open for a longert time, he said.
A coalescing of the Fed and the Obamaz administrationis “not something the markets want to Regalia said. Obama has declinec to say whether he will reappoint whose term endsin Meanwhile, more than half of smallo business owners expect the recession to last at leas another two years, according to a surveyh of Intuit Payroll customers. But 61 perceng 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 said Cameron Schmidt, director of marketing for Intuiyt Employee Management Solutions.
“Even in the gloomiesg economy there are opportunities to A separate survey of small business owners by Discovet Financial Services found that 57 percent thought the economy wasgetting worse, while 26 percenyt thought the economy was More than half planned to decrease spending on business development in the next six