ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan Defends their Recession Call

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Lakshman Achuthan, co-founder of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, talks about the U.S. economy. Achuthan speaks with Tom Keene and Sara Eisen on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance." (Source: Bloomberg)
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Highlights:

• Job losses for 35 to 54 year olds are approaching one million jobs lost since this "recovery" began.  This is where you make and spend the most money and is at the core to what is wrong. 
• If you are doing well, then in the recent economy you are doing very well.  If you are near Wall Street, then "it is good to be close to the helicopters which are spewing cash."
• The Fed would "not have four years of zero interest rate policy and quantitative easing forever and Q-ternity if everything was OK."
• "We believe a recession began last year."
• "Sometimes it takes up to two years" for final GDP revisions which can be large.
• Past downward revisions to GDP were 2 to 4 percentage points lower after the last few recessions.
• The Fed is using "trickle down theory" of the "wealth effect" hoping higher stock and housing prices will stimulate the economy.
• The pace of growth in home prices will decelerate. 
• The current GDP data shows US growth is lower now than in Japan during their "lost decades."

Feel free to add any items I missed or you think is important in the comments.

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