Looking for Some Bright Economic Forecasts About the Recovery: Don't Read This

A few articles in the Economist caught my eye this weekend for their take on what our economic recovery might look like:  Think long, hard slog...

• "The trap:  The curse of long-term unemployment will bedevil the economy"

Check out this chart which shows the percentage of workers unemployed for more than 27 weeks:

"Digging out of debt:  The rich world's debt reduction has barely begun"

Here were the reasons given as to why this hole will take longer to dig out of:

"Worse, there are several reasons why today’s mess could be more protracted than previous episodes. First, the scale of indebtedness is higher. The highest debt ratio in the report’s group of belt-tighteners was 286%, in Britain after the second world war. Today more than half the rich countries in the McKinsey sample have debt totalling more than 300% of GDP. Second, the number of countries afflicted simultaneously means that rapid expansions of exports, which have supported output in the past, are harder to achieve. Third, big increases in public debt, while cushioning demand in the short term, increase the overall debt reduction that will eventually be needed. Once private deleveraging is done, the public sector will need to cut back."