From Associated Press:

IMF sees US falling into recession


By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON - The world economy will slow sharply this year, according to an International Monetary Fund forecast, with the United States sliding into a recession amid housing, credit and financial slumps.
The International Monetary Fund, in a World Economic Outlook released Wednesday, slashed growth projections for the United States — the epicenter of the woes — and the global economy as a whole.
Economic growth in the United States is expected to slow to a crawl of just 0.5 percent this year, which would mark the worst pace in 17 years, when the country last suffered through a recession, the global finance body said. The United States won’t fare much better next year; the IMF projected the U.S. economy will grow by a feeble 0.6 percent in 2009, when measured by an annual average.
“The U.S. economy will tip into a mild recession in 2008 as the result of mutually reinforcing cycles in the housing and financial markets,” the IMF said.
Many private economists and members of the U.S. public believe the country has already fallen into its first recession since 2001. For the first time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged last week that a recession was possible.
An increasing number of analysts think the U.S. economy, which grew by 2.2 percent in 2007, started shrinking in the first three months of this year and is still contracting. Under one rough rule, if the economy contracts for six straight months it is considered to be in a recession. A panel of experts at the National Bureau of Economic Research that determines when U.S. recessions begin and end, however, uses a broader definition, taking into account income, employment and other barometers. When the IMF projected U.S. economic growth using another measure — comparing activity in the fourth quarter of one year with the previous year — the country’s economy would actually shrink 0.7 percent this year, said the IMF’s chief economist Simon Johnson. By that measure, the economy would grow by a still lackluster 1.6 percent in 2009, he added.

Gee, who knew that the IMF had so much power?
Maybe we should up their bribes so that they will say we are headed for an economic boom.
Please note that this entire story is an absolute lie, since even the IMF is predicting actual growth (albeit at lower the lower rates of .5% and .6%) and not a recession. Even by the author’s own rules:

Under one rough rule, if the economy contracts for six straight months it is considered to be in a recession.

Er, the economy has not contracted at all. The IMF and others are only predicting that it will expand at a slower rate.
Of course it is long since clear to all that the IMF will say and the Associated Press will publish any lie no matter how obvious if they think it will help their DNC masters gain power.
By the way, how is it possible that Jeannine Aversa didn’t get a Pulitzer for her valiant and ceaseless efforts to try to destroy the US economy? Maybe her Democrat bosses have promised her something better.
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