Or maybe not. Remember how I pointed out that there was going to be a crash this year? Now consider what Goldman Sachs was saying at the end of December:
Just months after almost everyone on Wall Street worried that a recession was just around the corner, Goldman Sachs said a downturn is unlikely over the next several years.
In fact, the firm’s economists stopped just short of saying that the U.S. economy is recession-proof.
An analysis Goldman conducted of the current potential risks to growth show that they are mostly muted. The report found that the pillars of the “Great Moderation” that began in the 1980s — low levels of volatility marked by sustainable growth and muted inflation, interrupted only by the financial crisis more than a decade ago — are still standing.
Investors could be excused for getting a little nervous over such calls, as optimism also was heavy in late 2007, just as the economy was about to enter the worst of the financial crisis.
So much for those “mostly muted” risks to growth.