In one of the surveys about national economic prospects that grabs big headlines but may say very little about real trends, the National Association for Business Economics is saying that companies think that the recession may have bottomed.
For starters, the survey is based on questions answered by 109 companies, where seems like a terribly small sample.
According to Reuters, “the NABE survey of companies and trade associations showed that pessimism about U.S. economic growth is rising, as 93 percent of respondents expected real GDP to decline this year. That was worse than 78 percent in the previous survey in January.” In contrast to that, those polled see a slight improvement in capital spending and there was a very modest portion of the firms that said they would increase hiring.
The Reuters headline for its story about the survey reads: “economy declining, but recession abating.” That is a distortion.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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