Economists: Recession to end in 2009

A recent survey by the National Association of Business Economists (NABE) has predicted that the recession will end in the third quarter of 2009. An organization dedicated to analyzing economic trends, NABE's forecasts have gotten increasingly optimistic over the past few months, suggesting that many consumers are growing less apprehensive about the future.

Admittedly, NABE's rosy prediction should be taken advisedly. After all, it's only been four months since the organization was predicting a full year of rising unemployment, falling spending and shrinking GDP. For that matter, even though 74 percent of NABE economists think that the recession will turn around in the third quarter, the rest are hedging their bets. Nineteen percent are anticipating that it will continue to the end of the year and seven percent are anticipating that it will last until the first quarter of 2010.