America’s Economy 2012 – Economic Recovery? Or More Bad News?

Here are the views of some of Americas {so called Experts} on Americas economy in 2012.

John Lonski, Managing Director and Chief Economist at Moody’s Capital Markets Group said “U.S. economy will have some upside surprises.” “What begins to happen is that as the long-term unemployed admit to the difficulty of finding work, they are willing to take lower paying jobs.” {Take a lower paying job, wow, how knew that little tid-bit?}

Maury Harris, chief economist at UBS Securities said “Typically people don’t start looking until the jobs are already there.”

Chief Economist John Silvia at Wells Fargo said “expects approximately 1.5 million jobs to be added over the next year. The disconnect between skills among the American labor force and the skills in demand by firms remains the biggest challenge to stability in the labor market.” {At 1.5 million new jobs a year it will only take 10 years to reemploy the 15 million that are ‘currently’ unemployed. Will 2022 be the year the unemployed should be looking forward to?}

U.S. Home mortgage rates hit record lows this year, with the 30-year, fixed-rate averaging 3.91% this month, the lowest in 40 years, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Existing home sales and new home sales were both up in November, signs that the housing market could be on its way to stabilizing going into 2012.

Mortgage lenders believe there are many financially strong households that would love to take advantage of low mortgage rates but won’t because they are afraid of housing prices being de-valued.

Generally, economists say the outlook for growth in 2012 is positive for the United States, but many unknowns remain that could knock the U.S. and global economies backward. The European crisis, instability in the Middle East, Vladimir Putin’s ascendency in Russia and his influence in Eastern Europe, and Iran’s nuclear capabilities all could play a role in 2012, not to mention the potential for China’s economic bubble bursting.