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From David Leonhardt, wondering whether the economy is headed back into recession:
Perhaps the best sign of how difficult it is to know the economy’s direction is that, as a group, the nation’s professional forecasters have failed to predict all the recessions since the 1970s, according to data kept by the Philadelphia Fed. In the last 30 years, the average probability they put on the economy lapsing into recession has never risen above 50 percent — until the economy was already in a recession.
Not to keep you in suspense, but Leonhardt concludes that the odds of a double-dip recession are now pretty good. I think he’s right.
