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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (184998)	9/21/2001 4:55:01 PM
From: Mr. Whist	Respond to of 769670

Wall Street Economists: U.S. in Recession Sep 21 4:32pm ET By Marjorie Olster NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. economy has slipped into a recession, and following last week's attacks, growth will not resume until the first half of 2002, a Reuters poll of leading Wall Street firms on Friday concluded. A rapidly deteriorating economic outlook will prod the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates by year-end to the lowest levels in almost four decades, the survey of primary dealers of U.S. government securities predicted. "There is a huge cloud of uncertainty surrounding anyone's views on the economy," said Dana Johnson, senior managing director at Banc One Capital Markets in Chicago. "We are trying to anticipate the reactions of businesses and households in an environment which has no precedent." The $10 trillion U.S. economy was already on the brink of recession before the September 11 attacks by hijackers who slammed commercial airliners into New York's World Trade Center and American military headquarters near Washington. The death toll in the attacks is expected to exceed 6,800, and the U.S. government has vowed fierce retaliation. The attacks also paralyzed economic activity last week. Of the 25 dealers polled, 24 said the world's largest economy is now in recession -- typically defined as two consecutive quarters of contracting gross domestic product. One firm made no call. In late June, the firms that deal directly with the Fed in money market operations saw only about a one-in-three chance of a recession this year. They had expected the economy to begin recovering by the end of this year. Fifteen dealers predicted the Fed's benchmark federal funds overnight bank lending rate would fall from 3.0 percent currently to 2.25 percent or lower by year-end. Nine said it would be at 2.0 percent and nine others put it at 2.5 percent. One made no forecast. Fed funds at 2.5 percent would be the lowest since 1962.