Via Matthew Yglesias, we have this report from the IMF with a very simple story: This recession is slowing, but recovery will be sluggish -- especially in the world's advanced economies, where the hurt has been deepest. Yglesias concludes: "If I were an incumbent U.S. Senator running for re-election in 2010 I would be terrified by these projections." Is that right?
Here's the illuminating graph the IMF provides. Advanced economies' GDP
growth dipped into steep negative territory in 2008 and looks to
recover, albeit slowly, toward the end of 2009.
On the other hand, my pet theory about the recession and the 2010 elections is that it's the Republicans
who should be most concerned. Most of the economists I read seem to
agree that we'll begin to see positive economic growth toward the end
of 2009. The GOP is stuck in an unfortunate track of economic timing,
because the mechanics of this
recession are such that by next
summer, the Democratic party will be able to say confidently: "Is this
economy better off than you were two years ago, when we were mired in
the suckhole of the worst financial crisis in 60 years?" And the
answer, even by dour estimates like the IMF, will almost certainly be Yes.
Side
note: It's for this reason that I've always defended, at least
strategically if not virtuously, the tactics of Republicans in Obama's
first few months in office, which has to build a unified fortress of
opposition to the Obama White House. If we spring out of this recession
with five-percent GDP growth in the first few quarters of 2010,
Republicans are flat-out hosed, because Democrats will get all the
credit. If we don't -- ie if growth is flattish and if unemployment
lingers around 9 percent toward the end of 2009-- than Republicans
stand to gain, but only if they can say: "We never stood with this
White House, or this failed economic policy, and look where we are
now." Inasmuch as 2010 will be an ultimatum on the economy, the GOP has
little reason to be seen as secondary enablers of an unconservative
economic policy.
