That's what NPR told listeners this morning. Actually, NPR just told us that the experts expect the recession to be brief, they didn't tell us that their experts didn't have a clue as far as seeing the recession coming. Given the track record of NPR's records maybe they could better used their air time talking about something else. For the record, non-surprised economists noticed the data from the Case-Shiller indexes that was released yesterday. These indexes showed that house prices were falling at close to a 25 percent annual rate over the last quarter. If this rate of price decline continues, it will imply a lose of close to $6 trillion in real housing wealth over the course of the year. This will lead to large cutbacks in consumption, millions of additional foreclosures, much more turmoil in financial markets, and many more surprised economists. The good news is that economists don't have to worry about losing their jobs or even getting a pay cut when they mess up.
--Dean Baker