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Jeremy Grantham’s Depressing Prospects for US Growth

No commentary necessary here.  To me, this reads like one big “this time is different” piece.  Yes, I really think the balance sheet recession is a “this time is different” scenario, but as they say, this too shall pass….Some snippets via GMO:

“The U.S. GDP growth rate that we have become accustomed to for over a hundred years – in excess of 3% a year – is not just hiding behind temporary setbacks. It is gone forever. Yet most business people (and the Fed) assume that economic growth will recover to its old rates.”

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Going forward, GDP growth (conventionally measured) for the U.S. is likely to be about only 1.4% a year,
and adjusted growth about 0.9%.

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The bottom line for U.S. real growth, according to our forecast, is 0.9% a year through 2030, decreasing to 0.4% from 2030 to 2050 (see table on Page 16). This is all done presuming no unexpected disasters, but also no heroics, just normal “muddling through.”

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Investors should be wary of a Fed whose policy is premised on the idea that 3% growth for the U.S. is normal. Remember, it is led by a guy who couldn’t see a 1-in-1200-year housing bubble! Keeping rates down until productivity surges above its last 30-year average or until American fertility rates leap upwards could be a very long wait!

Fun times.

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