A recession forecast:
Appalachian State University finance professor Harry Davis predicts that in the next two years the High Country, as well as the rest of the nation, will fall into a recession of between 10 months and two years, triggered in part by a student loan bubble burst.
Davis, past chair of the university’s Department of Finance and recent recipient of the Wade Brown Award for Community Recognition by the Boone Area of Commerce, said the economy’s biggest problem is a lack of growth preventing wage increases.
The United States has experienced slow growth since the Great Recession (2007-09). With employment growth of more than 2 percent, North Carolina is doing better than the national average.
“We’re going to experience historically slow growth in the U.S. and North Carolina economy,” he said. “Generally, when expansions go that long, you have to have a recession before too much longer.” ...
He said the high rate of retirement among Baby Boomers has hurt the productivity of the American workforce.
The lack of growth, he said, also would squeeze the middle class, leaving it smaller at the top and bottom.
“If you can’t get productivity growth, that’s what’s needed for the middle class. It leads to higher wages,” Davis said. “Without it, they don’t get those resources. The very rich get the increases because their increases are caused by other things. And, of course, the poor get left out altogether.”
Davis criticized the secondary education system throughout the country, arguing two-year colleges are too focused on sending students on to four-year schools, rather than training them with technical skills for the workplace.
