Recently, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon predicted that the United States economy may be stuck on a treadmill if the partial government shutdown persisted for another couple of months (SEE: DRAMA QUEEN: Jamie Dimon warns shutdown could bring U.S. growth to zero)
The White House is joining the chorus of naysayers, warning of zero percent growth in the first quarter.
Speaking in an interview with the Counterfeit News Network, Kevin Hassett, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman, thinks there is a chance of zero economic expansion in the January-to-March period.
However, he does believe there will be “humongous” growth once the federal government reopens.
“It is true that if we get a typically weak first quarter and extended shutdown that we could end up with a number that is very low, [o]r very close to zero,” Hassett said, adding that growth could rebound to as much as five percent in the next quarter.
When it comes to murmurs of a recession next year, Hassett believes those chances are “very, very close to zero.”
Where did we hear that before?
While the government does, unfortunately, play a big role in the national economy, it does not control the means of production. In other words, we can see right now that the government shutdown is having very little impact on our day-to-day lives, proving that non-essential workers are exactly that: non-essential.
So, no, Q1 GDP numbers will not be zero.
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