EconomicCrisis.US

The economy is gradually gaining strength, creating more jobs, and reducing the unemployment rate. Economic pain for American families, though, remains significant with relatively high unemployment, persistent long-term unemployment, lingering household wealth losses, and crushing debt burdens. The economy will have to grow much faster for much longer to restore economic security for America’s middle class.

The private sector drives growth and job creation, but the current economic recovery would be weaker and delayed had policymakers not taken steps in the past few years to invest in infrastructure and help the most vulnerable.
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The US economy grew at the fastest pace in a year and a half in the fourth quarter of 2011, the Commerce Department said on Friday.

The encouraging acceleration ended the year with a positive note, but failed to dispel uncertainties about the economic outlook.

Gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced, rose at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter, the department said in a preliminary report.

It is a considerable increase from the revised 1.8 percent in the third quarter, but still fell short of the economists’ wide expectation of 3 percent, Xinhua reported.
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What better time to hold the World Economic Forum than in the middle of the biggest global economic crisis since 1945? And yet the delegates who make the trek up to Davos this year are more likely to be disorientated than energised by the state of the world economy.

The global economic crisis has raised fundamental questions about the stability of the world economy, about the role of high finance and about the balance of power between the West and the emerging powers. Added to this mix is the new sense of political instability caused by the Arab spring and the outbreak of popular protest from Occupy Wall Street to the streets of Moscow.
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The European debt crisis threatens to spill over to the U.S. and emerging markets, requiring a bigger financial firewall, more bank recapitalization and limits on bank deleveraging, the International Monetary Fund said.

While European policy makers have taken steps to contain the crisis, it still poses risks to U.S. stability and may spread to emerging markets beyond central and Eastern Europe, the IMF said. The U.S. in particular is at risk, including the direct exposure of banks, according to the IMF.
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