Reporting from Real Estate News Group GlobeSt.com in New York City said that Economist outlooks for the next two years were grim. Last week, at the Urban Land Institute breakfast discussion the 2009 Economic Outlook sent further warnings that the nation is in for perilous economic times. Moody's ecnomist Mark Zandi spoke of chilling job loss figures, saying that in New York City alone, 300,000 jobs could disappear over the next year and a half. The panel also raised veiled charges that fairly recent financial sector regulatory policy changes contributed greatly to the current meltdown. He stressed the sense of urgency that the new administration must maintain by acting quickly and massively perhaps restructuring the markets. They agreed this is essential to correct the financial sector's perilous state. Still, one of the most threatening clouds flying over the nation and particularly New York City are the predictions that the Big Apple stands to see job losses approaching 300,000 over the next year and a half with no consensus if, and when those jobs will ever come back. Below is an excerpt and link to the full coverage of the presentation from GlobeSt.com.
Excerpt from GlobeSt.com story by Cody Lyon-GlobeSt.com
"We’re going to suffer the worst downturn since the great depression," said Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.
A year ago, Zandi, along with a few other noted economists, said the job market was operating at stall speed. In a wire report that appeared in the Dallas Morning News, Zandi forewarned ''either something is going to revive the economy quickly or we’re going to get into an unraveling, vicious cycle of declining spending and even weaker job growth."
Fast forward 12 months to the ULI breakfast in Midtown, where Zandi, marveling at how rapidly his earlier prediction came true, said that in his 25 years as an economist, "it’s about as bad as I’ve ever seen it." Attempting to lay blame, Zandi said house prices roughly doubled in the first half of the decade, then the process of mortgage securitization, the process of global investor dollars and turning those dollars into mortgages of US homeowners was all fundamentally flawed.
"No one in this process had the responsibility of making sure that the loans being made were good loans," he said. Zandi said one of the hallmarks of this particular recession is over-levered consumers who are struggling to manage debt loads and record delinquencies.
LINK TO FULL STORY at GlobeSt.com