Nine months ago, we were told that the world would be in recession today. This did not quite happen. Now we are assured that 2023 will see a global recession, even in the US. And the IMF announced that the world economy would grow at -0.5% in 2023. We agree that the world may have a mild recession, even if we believe the US will not.*** We have only two reservations about the consensus forecasts.

First, it is wonderful news that the world economy will shrink by only -0.5% given the shocks its economies have sustained. In the first half of the 20th century, a typical recession wo...