Citi: Here Comes a Global Recession

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Citi: Here Comes a Global Recession
Growth is likely to fall apart.


(Bloomberg) After a few years of reasonably calm markets and stable growth around the world, Citigroup Inc. says the chances of a global recession are already high and only going up.

"In our view, global growth is at a highly precarious point, after 2-3 years of relative calm," the team of economists led by Willem Buiter said in their note, which is likely to exacerbate concerns about the world's ability to withstand a pause in China's stunning economic growth.

"The long-standing fragilities in the world economy relate to the structural and cyclical slowdowns in China and its unsustainable exchange rate regime, the excessive level of debt across many countries and sectors and ongoing regional and geopolitical uncertainty," the economists said. The economists have accordingly revised their forecast for growth this year in advanced economies, from a 2.4 percent in January 2015 to 1.6 percent currently, and warned that the 2016 figure "could well be lower."

When they adjust for what they call "true Chinese growth," the Citi team finds that global growth might have been as low as 2 percent year-over-year in the final quarter of 2015. ................(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-25/citi-here-comes-a-global-recession