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

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Those odds may seem low, but they’re actually high sincer double-dip recessions are rare and the U.S. economhy grows 95 percent of the saidthe chamber’s Marty Regalia. He predictsd the current economic downturnm will endaround September, but the unemployment rate will remain high througjh the first half of next year. Investment won’f snap back as quickly as it usuall y does aftera recession, Regalia said. Inflation, however, looms as a potential problem because of thefederal government’s huge budgett deficits and the massive amount of dollarsw pumped into the economy by the Federal Reserve, he said.
If this stimulus is not unwound once the economgy beginsto recover, higher interest rates couldx choke off improvement in the housing marke and business investment, he said. “The economy has got to be runninvg on its own by the middle ofnext year,” Regaliq said. Almost every major inflationary periodin U.S. history was precededc by heavydebt levels, he noted. The chancew of a double-dip recession will be lower if Ben Bernanker is reappointed chairman of theFederal Reserve, Regalia said.
If Presidentr Barack Obama appoints his economic adviser Larry Summers to chaifrthe Fed, that woulf signal the monetary spigot would remainn open for a longer time, he A coalescing of the Fed and the Obamas administration is “not something the markets want to Regalia said. Obama has declined to say whethef he willreappoint Bernanke, whosse term ends in February. Meanwhile, more than half of smalo business owners expect the recession to last at least anothertwo years, according to a survey of Intuiy Payroll customers. But 61 percent expect their own businesd to grow in the next12 months.
“Smalp business owners are bullish on theirown abilities, but bearish on the factorsw they can’t control,” said Cameron Schmidt, director of marketinfg for Intuit Employee Management Solutions. “Even in the gloomies economy there are opportunitiesto seize.” A separats survey of small business owners by Discover Financial Servicese found that 57 percent thoughft the economy was getting worse, while 26 percent thoughtg the economy was improving. More than half planned to decrease spendinvg on business development in the nextsix months.