'US economy to decline for ten years'

Harvard University Professor Martin Feldstein

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/159420.html


Several prominent economists have portrayed a grim outlook for the ailing economy in the US, saying the recovery remains a long way off even more than a decade.

Speaking at an annual convention on the US economy, leading thinkers in the economic sphere stated that the dire situation will drag on in 2011 and it would take even ten years for the country to regain its economic prowess, Reuters reported on Sunday.

Experts have taken a less sanguine view towards Federal Reserve's economic plan early in November to inject a 600-billion-dollar stimulus to spur the country's sluggish economic recovery.

As government stimulus measures dry up, the United States might, in the short run, face serious setbacks in terms of economic recovery, while, over the long haul, the country will perforce lose its place to China as the world's largest economy.

The world acclaimed Professor Martin Feldstein from Harvard University painted a bleak picture for the US economy, arguing that growth from government spending will be drying up in 2011.

"There's really not much help coming from fiscal policy in the year ahead," said Feldstein, adding that the existing dire situations of state and local government are widely expected to play havoc with plans to regain growth.

Feldstein, who also served as chief economic advisor under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, further referred to household worries, decline in home values and the ballooning national debt -- now standing at record high of over $14 trillion -- as the primary causes of the slugging growth in the years to come.

"People are worried, so there's a strong reason for precautionary saving," he noted.