Recession May be Bad

Officials at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are expecting a serious recession, according to this article in the Financial Times. One quote captures the feeling, that from former Fed Vice Chair, Alan Blinder:

“It looks to me like the economy has fallen off a cliff...The game is now about making sure this recession is less deep and less long than the 1982 recession.”

One difficulty in forecasting how deep this will be is the fact that the crisis is international. Another, is to understand how US households will respond to the cut in their wealth. Will savings rise in reaction? We have depended for a decade on households consumption based on the growth in asset prices. Now that households cannot rely on this, what will happen to consumption?