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Russian economy growth slowed to 1% in 2025 growth slows to 0.8% in 2026 following 4% growth in 2023 and 2024. The Economy Minister Reshetnikov says Russia is on the brink of recession. Consumer spending growth was zero in Feb 2026, new car sales dropped 38% in 2025 and continue to drop. Le Monde cites the example of the Mashenka bakery which is facing high costs and increase in value added tax to 22% and was near bankruptcy. Small businesses are suffering in this economic situation. Interest rates are kept at 20% lowered to 15% to keep inflation in check. This shows the Russian economy and people are in a difficult situation to finance the Ukraine war with 40% of public spending going to the defense budget for 2025-2027.

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50 Economists are surveyed by WSJ from banks and universities to small consulting firms. The consensus is that unemployment will remain the same and inflation a bit higher (2.9% instead of 2.6%) if the war is temporary. At what price point and for how long does it cause problems of a recession? The price point is in the region of $138 and in the region of 14 weeks. Inflation predicted at 2.6% is now estimated to increase to 2.9% in this survey March 16-March 18. The attack on gas and oil fields in Qatar, UAE, Saudi and Iran may pose a different kind of problem making it harder to repair than the Straits of Hormuz closure which could be opened at any time and allow tanker traffic to resume supplies.

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Britain has suffered a deep recession with negative 10% growth and is not expected to regain pre-pandemic levels till 2022, says the International Monetary Fund.

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Bank of Spain Gov. Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said Spain finds itself in an "exceptional situation," as it goes "back into recession," and only exports acting to contribute to gains in GDP.

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Strong spending on services, on items like travel and leisure spending is helping the economy avoid a recession in 2023. About $500 billion in excess savings from the pandemic period that Americans have to spend, according to a report from the San Francisco  Federal Reserve Bank, is keeping spending strong in mid 2023. The strong demand for travel also enables airlines and hotels to raise fares and rates.

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Economic growth drops to 0.4% in the eurozone and Germany avoids a recession with slight increase in growth to 0.2% in the 3rd quarter of 2024. Energy cost have hit German industry hard.

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Britain faces two years of growth at near zero with a no-deal Brexit -even though it could avoid a recession by adding a stimulus package of 44 billion pounds and welfare spending amounting to 2% of GDP. The extra spending would blow the deficit reduction plans.

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April 2025 WSJ forecast of recession in next 12 months is 45%. In 2022 and 2023 forecasts for recession in US were at 60% higher than the 2025 forecast of 45%, yet no recession happened.  It all depends on the USTR's Jamieson, and DJT's advisers Bessent, Luttnick, and Navarro, and Lighthizer, DJT using all their experience and carefully using Tariffs to achieve US goals. This means working out the details of the US economy, of inflation, GDP growth, cost of living, to maintain confidence of people in America, the confidence of the working people in America. Action on pharmaceuticals bringing production back home is a win as here it is a clear way to get companies to reduce prices. Permitting imports removing backward looking laws restricting pharmaceutical imports would create the competition that was missing. US automobile companies knowing the government has their back can actually cut prices in the first 12 months of 2025, with Toyota and Hyundai-Kia following suit. This would remove another source of inflation. On iphones and computers getting companies to create a new US+1 with India by 2027 would enable 60% of iphones and computers to be made in India and the US by 2027, The new strategy would be to combine the industrial base of India with the US to create plenty of good US jobs as the priority. Piece by piece the puzzle can be put together with attention to details and keeping overall goals in mind to restore US manufacturing and US industrial base, jobs, that will create its own tailwinds for decades of future growth.   ...

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The Bank of England under Governor Carney cut interest rates 0.25% from a low of 0.5%, and suggested further cuts were on the way. This follows Brexit and action by the central bank to avoid a recession. The British pound fell about 1.6% to $1.3112 against the dollar, and euro 1.770 against the euro. Government borrowing costs declined, and the 10 year bonds yield dropped to 0.639%. Economic growth in Britian for the second half 2016 will be little or none. The GDP growth forecast for 2017 is now 0.8%, down from 2.3% before the Brexit vote. Bank of England staff say their calculations show Brexit vote has "conservatively" reduced growth by 2.5 percentage points over 3 years even after the rate cuts and stimulus action of the Bank of England, which other estimates show could add 0.5% over 2 years. This brings the Brexit impact to about 3% loss in GDP over 3 years, with these reliable estimates. Months after the Brexit vote the question remains whether Brexit supporters misled British voters, leaving the Bank of England to come up with a way to prevent a recession. After the austerity cuts since 2009 and the prospect of some improvement in the economy, this is a step backwards at a time when some of the working and middle class find themselves left behind. ...

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What lies ahead of the US economy, first week of September 2007? John Makin who has worked with Treasury for many years as senior economist and was visiting scholar at Bank of Japan, and Prof of Economics at University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, and is now scholar at American Enterprise Institute, gives his assessment of what is happening and what to expect. He sees the callof recession easier and easier to make. A slowdown definitely. The US definition of recession 2 consecutive quarters of negative consumption growth make this a techincal isue. But a slowdown is definitely in the works argues Makin. Putting together the numbers Makin comes up with a negative 0.8% growth for the fourth quarter. Makin believes that the probability is high that the fallout of the mortgage and housing crisis as it filters through the economy and affects credit and consumption growth will result in negative growth late in 2007 and early 2008. As he puts it referring to the whole mess of ratings agencies giving 100% loan to value securitized morgages a triple A rating, and the gradual unwinding of this mess through the housing, banking and finance sectors as well as consumers, " this collective stupidity" he calls it , will cost us a recession. ...

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Schlesinger says Kuroda now appears to be behind the curve when he announced quantitative easing measures in Japan to fight deflation tendencies. With Japan in recession stronger action may be needed.

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Can Britain take it, more Tory austerity cuts? Mark Landler in the NYT calls it one of the most austere budgets ever imposed on Britain, a country already in recession. Prime minister Sunak and finance minister Jeremy Hunt introduce a budget that will cut government programs saving 30 billion pounds and higher taxes of 25 billion pounds or $29.7 billion. This will mean a drop of 7% in disposable incomes of people in Britain over 2 years. After a series of missteps first under Boris Johnson and then briefly under Liz Truss, the Tory government of Rishi Sunak concentrates on budgetary constraints ignoring the promises made for growth and improving infrastructure, leveling up of regions, that were made by a series of Conservative governments. It lacks broad support as this government was not elected with this mandate. Boris Johnson won the election with traditional Labour support for leveling up, growth and infrastructure. None of this is happening. Also cut are budgets for the defense ministry, foreign aid and aid to cultural institutions in London. ...

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A former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein, says a recession is likely in the U.S. as interest rates rise. He sees interest rates on 10 year Treasury  notes rising from about 3% to 5%, as the Fed pushes the short term rate from today's 2% to a projected 3.4% in 2020. As short term interest rates go up he sees equity prices reflecting historic P/E ratios for stocks. This would lead to a significant drop in share prices and drop in consumer spending, drop in business investment, and a drop in GDP of 2%. 

Because of huge deficits as publicly held federal debt rises from 75% to 100% by 2020, there is less room for fiscal intervention and help through public spending, and with short term rates at around 3% less room to cut rates. This means, says Feldstein, that a new recession would last longer.

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The Japanese government reports a revised estimate for GDP growth in 3rd quarter 2015 from a decline of 0.8% to an annualized rate of growth of 1%. As a result Japan is no longer in recession as previously reported.

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Niall Ferguson, Professor at Harvard, expects 2 consecutive years of contraction and two lean years after that. Again the worldwide recession makes it harder to come out of this one, and having seen only 2 consecutive quarters of contraction there is a long way to go.

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Recession forecasts come from economists using obsolete economic theory, not looking at the situation on the ground- continuing this where US lost its industrial base, lost 5 million jobs, tens of thousands of factories, means falling behind to a point where US cannot make comeback as the largest economic power. It is the situation Lincoln faced where between 1830's and 1860 similar to 1995-2025 for three decades the US in one situation saw slavery getting entrenched, and in 2025 sees economic decline getting entrenched. Lincoln's answer was then and it speaks to us now- Fifteen decades ago A. Lincoln stated- "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and we shall save our country." IMF forecast of no US or world recession in 2025-2026. Earlier Chase Bank and other forecasts showed increase in chance of recession. WSJ forecast says 45% chance of recession in next 12 months but also says there was prediction of 60% chance of recession in 2022 and in 2023 which did not happen. ...

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Food inflation in Europe is much higher than in the US, 5-10% in the US, Canada and Japan compared to 15-20% in Europe.  UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt sees further interest rate increases better than the continuing instability and cost of living crisis from inflation in this report in The Guardian. A recent report in WSJ shows how this is a fourth shock in Europe after the supply chain bottlenecks, the jump in energy prices, the labor market shortages. Germany is in a mild recession.

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Roshe gives an independent view of whats happening in the economy and sees a recession, sticky inflation that will last a long time for the US and the world economy in a semirecession for a long time. Roche of independent Strategy consultancy in London does not see the Fed's actions to increase liquidity having any effect in resolving the issues of solvency which have resulted from the overleveraging of brokerage and mortgage firms on Wall Street, only exacerbating the effects of a weaker dollar and higher inflation over the longer term. He points out that hedge fund and broker balance sheets or nondeposit financial institutions (NDFI's) half the size of banks in the USA and a quarter of the size of banks in Europe have their assets and liabilities financed by repurchase agreements. They lend and borrow against the collateral of assets that are marked to market, which means that they can borrow more and easily in a rising market cycle and can borrow less and with more difficulty in a falling market cycle. With the contracting cycle in place now they are facing insolvency issues. This may have been delayed till now because of investment banking profits and having credit lines for the duration of a contract. Till now investmet banking profits gave them leverage over lenders who made money from fees in investment banking. Now the banks hurt by writedowns of loans in mortgages and other areas are likely to tighten lending and call in their loans. What the Fed's actions will do is delay things a bit but not prevent a credit contraction and fall in asset prices. David Roche was Global Strategist for Morgan Stanley before starting Independent Strategy to provide fresh thinking and new insights on financial markets. His estimate is that reduction in available credit for corporate investment in technology, R&D and factories as a result of contraction in the financial system will require reducing corporate debt ultimately by 11-12 %. This will generate a loss of 5% points of real GDP growth for the US and put into a recession. For Europe he estimates loss of 2% points of real GDP growth. Global credit losses of $1.4 trillion would cause a contraction in world GDP of 2.5 percentage points or half the current rate of growth. For the global economy he sees a gray dull world of semi-recession and stickly inflation that will last a long time even without any major policy blunders. If this is original thinking and he is right then the Fed, the IMF, the Council of Economic Advisors, and general thinking on Wall Street that sees a short recession lasting several quarters may be in for a big shock....

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Alexei Kudrin on the potential for a deep economic and political crisis in Russia if Greece exits the eurozone and Europe goes into a recession.

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The US received a boost in the economy with larger public spending than the European Union countries and more spending on vaccines. This is changing quickly as the EU has secured a large order of vaccines from Pfizer and other companies. France and Germany are now making steady progress in their vaccination drives. Britain has already secured results in the NHS vaccination drive, a leader in the field.

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The coronavirus pandemic has a significant negative impact on women as they face job, child care and home responsibilities. One report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis says that without a comprehensive system of support "women will forever be vulnerable to career scarring during any major crisis like this pandemic." This is true not just for the U.S., it is also true for women in countries in Europe, in Asia and other countries.

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Strong hiring and consumer spending is propelling the US economy forward in 2024. With 4th quarter growth at 3.3% the year 2023 ended with the US economy growth at 3.1% for the year. Contrast that with economists projecting 0.2% growth in 2023 in 2022. In 2022 the growth was 0.7%. Much of this growth can be attributed to the Biden administration going all out to support American industry and bringing jobs and factories home, supporting wage increases which in turn supported consumer spending into 2023 and now into 2024. The public feeling the effects of price increases has not grasped the full significance of this growth trend of this decade with the complete focus on the economy, manufacturing, and the strength in advanced technologies of president Biden and a group of bipartisan members of the US Congress from both parties. As inflation slows with the public resisting unfair price increases and the Powell Fed controlling parameters of inflation, the economic effects of this growth are being felt across all sectors and among the wider public.  ...

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The IMF in its 2012-2013 Global Economic Outlook Report presented at its annual meeting in October 2012 estimates global economic growth of 3.3% in 2012 and 3.6% in 2013. This is a drop of 0.2% for 2012 and 0.3% for 2013 from its earlier forecast in July 2012. Under the IMF definition the global economy GDP does not have to decline for a recession. Advanced economies growth estimate is 1.3% in 2012 and 1.5% in 2013. Emerging market economies growth estimate is of 5.3% in 2012 and improving to 5.6% in 2013. Specifically for the eurozone growth estimate is decline of 0.4% in 2012 and 0.2% growth in 2013. U.S. growth is estimated at 2.2% for 2012. China's growth rate is estimated at 7.8% in 2012 with a growth uptick to 8.2% in 2013 as a much smaller stimulus than the one in 2009 kicks in. This will help commodity exporters like Brazil, Australia, and Canada. Two surprises are Brazil's growth with a significant improvement to 4% in 2013 from 1.5% in 2012 because of sharp interest rate cuts and improving demand from China. The other is India which is expected to show a significant slowdown with a growth estimate of 4.9% as the government faces what the Kelkar committee report calls "a perfect storm" of a large current account deficit and a budget deficit, and failure to attract foreign investment. Growth in Japan is expected to slow to 1.2% in 2013 from 2.2% in 2012 as the government imposes a sales tax increase to reduce its deficit. ...