Commercial Printing Outlook: Forecasting a U-turn

Reading the Signs

Weeks before the announcement came, the possibility of a downward revision in the third quarter GDP numbers was already being considered by Ron Davis, Ph.D., and Printing Industries of America's (PIA) chief economist and vice president. "Fourth quarter growth may slow down to a little less than 3 percent, but that's really good compared to declining 3 to 4 percent like the economy had been," he notes. "In 2009, we're going to be down 3 to 4 percent again in terms of nominal (not adjusted for inflation) printing shipments."