Gloom, doom and more gloom
In an interview I did for the trade publication Investment Management Weekly on Thursday, Putnam Investments’ global asset allocation head Jeffrey Knight said that while the stimulus could “help to prevent a Great Depression sequel,” at the same time “Those who measure prosperity against the Faustian opulence of the last 10 years may find that stability, equilibrium and even recovery will still feel like a deep depression.”
Another fund manager, Ron D’Vari, co-founder and CEO of a new fund management firm that specializes in so-called distressed assets—the very things that have the nation’s banks reeling on the edge of failure—says the economy has fallen into “an L-shaped recession where it’s hard to say how long it will be down at the bottom.” D’Vari also told me, “We think we will have a sort of subsistence economy—not like North Africa, but it could look like just getting by for some time before you see the start of a real recovery.”
Lindorff believes Obama’s approach is too Hoover-esque:
An economic “team of rivals” is a great idea, but to get that, Obama would have to be willing to reach over to the left side of the spectrum, not just the right.
Posted by James on Monday, February 09, 2009