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

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Those odds may seem low, but they’re actuallhy high since double-dip recessions are rare and the U.S. economy growws 95 percent of the time, said the chamber’s Martgy Regalia. He predicts the current economic downturnm will end around but the unemployment rate will remain high througnh the first half ofnext year. Investmentt won’t snap back as quickly as it usually does afterda recession, Regalia said.
Inflation, however, loom as a potential problemj because of thefederal government’s huge budgeg deficits and the massive amount of dollars pumpex into the economy by the Federal Reserve, he If this stimulus is not unwound once the economy begins to recover, higher interest ratez could choke off improvement in the housingf market and business investment, he said. “Thwe economy has got to be running on its own by the middle ofnext year,” Regalia said. Almost every majord inflationary periodin U.S. history was preceded by heavy debt he noted. The chances of a double-dil recession will be lower if Ben Bernankd is reappointed chairman of the Federal Regalia said.
If President Barack Obamsa appoints his economic adviser Larrty Summers to chairthe Fed, that would signall the monetary spigot would remai n open for a longer he said. A coalescing of the Fed and the Obamaq administrationis “not something the marketsa want to see,” Regalia said. Obamaw has declined to say whether he willreappoint Bernanke, whose term ends in February. Meanwhile, more than half of small business owners expect the recession to last at least anotherrtwo years, according to a survety of Intuit Payroll customers.
But 61 percent expectr their own business to grow in the next12 “Small business owners are bullisy on their own abilities, but bearish on the factorxs they can’t control,” said Cameron Schmidt, director of marketinb for Intuit Employee Management Solutions. “Even in the gloomies economy there are opportunities to A separate survey of small business owners by Discovedr Financial Services found that 57 percent thought the economuy wasgetting worse, while 26 percent thought the economu was improving.
More than half planned to decrease spending on business developmenft in the nextsix