Commercial Printing Outlook: Forecasting a U-turn

In the vernacular of economists, the outlook is for the United States to continue seeing a "U"-shaped recovery from the Great Recession. While the economy has bottomed out and the decline stopped, there will be a wide and slow up-slope to the recovery, such as it is.

"Six or eight months ago no one knew when the free fall was going to stop. Very few people expected the economy to grow in the third quarter of 2009," notes Andrew Paparozzi, NAPL's chief economist and vice president. The strong growth for the quarter provided additional evidence that the absolute worst-case scenario was not going to be realized and showed the economy is indeed healing, he says. "We've put a bottom under it."