Forget all the talk from Bernanke that the recession is over. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says the recession won't be over until 2012, at the earliest.
In an interview with Daily Finance, Stiglitz says we could be waiting for at least another three years. Even if the official data says the recession is over, with two quarters of growth, in practical terms it will still be in place.
Stiglitz says: "There is likely to be weakness again in the economy in 2011. 2012 is an optimistic view of when we could be over the travails. The technical term 'recession' is two quarters of negative growth, and we're likely to have positive growth this quarter and next quarter – but that's not what most people mean by 'out of recession.' Most people mean, 'Are jobs plentiful? Is unemployment low? Are wages strong?' And in those core ways, we are far from being out of the recession."
"The couple million homes in foreclosure, commercial real estate, high unemployment, mean that some people are not going to be able to repay loans that are outstanding. The banking system is by no means out of the woods. There is reason to believe that there will be continue to be bankruptcies of the banks."
Stiglitz has an excellent point: if the recession is over, where are the jobs going to come from to drive growth in sales, earnings and consumer demand? Until that's sorted out, the recession will be in full force, regardless of what the official statistics tell us.
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