I will have more to say on Tuesday at the LCC Global Perspectives Conference, but it’s not pretty. The planet’s in trouble.
Both the IMF and World Bank are now forecasting an outright fall in global output in 2009, with a larger contraction than previously forecast in the advanced economies and sharply lower expected growth in the emerging world. I am not sure that even Nouriel Roubini was forecasting an outright fall in global output a year ago. Anything below 2% is generally considered a global recession.
The most visible manifestation of the scale of the downturn continues to come from Asia — with the sharp fall in Asian exports to the world mirroring the sharp fall in global demand. Japan’s exports are now down 50% from last February. The IMF is now forecasting a 6% of GDP contraction in Japan in 2009. That is a contraction of magnitude as emerging economies experience during their crises.
