Stiglitz Says U.S. Recession ‘Nowhere Near’ End After GDP Jump

Bob Willis
Bloomberg
Sunday, Nov 1st, 2009

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz said
the U.S. recession is “nowhere near” an end and the
economy’s third-quarter growth rate of 3.5 percent, the first
expansion in more than a year, won’t carry into 2010.

While this week’s figures on gross domestic product are
“very good,” the numbers would be “miserable”
without stimulus measures enacted by the Obama administration, Stiglitz
said today at a forum in Shanghai. He urged the U.S. and other
countries not to pull back on efforts to shore up economies.

“When we look at if workers can get jobs, if they can work
full time, if businesses are able to sell goods they produce, in those
terms, we are nowhere near the end of recession” in the U.S.,
said Stiglitz, 66, the former chief economist at the World Bank. The
U.S. job market is still “in very bad shape.”

Federal assistance to the housing and auto industries helped propel
growth in the July-September quarter. President Barack Obama, in his
weekly radio address to the nation, today called the Oct. 29 report on
GDP a “good sign” and said an expanding economy is the
first step to job creation.

Full article here