No recession but outlook bleak

Another US recession is not likely over the next 12 months. Neither is any meaningful improvement in the economy. That's the picture that emerges from a survey of leading economists who have grown more pessimistic in recent weeks. They say high unemployment and weak consumer spending will hold back the US economy into 2012. Their gloominess comes at a time when Europe's debt crisis threatens to infect the global financial system. It also coincides with an annual economic conference late this week in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and speculation about whether Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will unveil any new steps there to help the economy. Worries that another recession is nearing and that the European crisis will spread have led to a roughly 15 per cent drop in US stock prices in the past month. Economists say the Great Recession ended in June 2009.