Print
Dec 3, 2008 5:01 pm US/Central
2009 Forecast Grim From U. of C. Economists
Expert Sees An 'Ending To American Dream'
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
There is even more troubling economic news Wednesday night - the latest job numbers are out and they're not good. And a leading Chicago company has filed for bankruptcy protection. Can the economy get worse? As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, the answer, if you believe some experts, is yes it can.
Only a few months ago, a story about some economists offering their predictions about the coming year would likely have caused yawns all around. But that was then, this is now, and maybe we ought to listen more carefully as those experts peer into the crystal ball and share with us their visions of 2009.
Wednesday, Chicago-based Bally Total Fitness Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in less than two years. Today is also the day we learned that companies eliminated a quarter of a million American jobs in November.
And on this day, three economics professors looked ahead. What they see is not all pretty.
"The only thing that will be going up besides unemployment in 2009 will be the sale of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications," said University Of Chicago Prof. Marvin Zonis.
And because of housing price increases that went on for decades, another expert says we should have known that what went up would go down.
"One prediction that you can take to a bank 100 percent: housing prices in the U.S. are going to fall by another 15 to 20 percent over the next year and a half," said University of Chicago Prof. Eric Hurst.
"I anticipate the current recession will go on until the middle of next year," said Michael Mussa, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
That's just a few more months. Finally, some optimism. But not a lot.
"This recession, if you will, what I'm going to tell you is, it's going to be longer, potentially than the other ones," Hurst said.
"The fundamental threat to the political stability of the U.S., which I believe is not trivial, remains the fact that there has been an ending of the American dream," Zonis said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Video: CBS 2's Picks To Click
