We should expect this recession to continue at least through the first half of 2009, and the downturn will "rival that of 1973-75," according to a panel of economics forecasters surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics.  Other lowlights highlights include:

-Economic weakness will be dominated by a retrenchment in consumer -spending reflecting large employment and wealth losses.-Business investment will experience an exaggerated cyclical decline characteristic of economic downturns

-Real government spending is expected to advance a robust 2.8% in an otherwise grim 2009

-The jobless rate will peak at 9.0% by the end of the year.  House prices are predicted to decline 5% during 2009, though the S&P 500 index is expected to rise a solid 8% by December 31, 2009. 

There is some good news in the report.  The NABE panel projected moderate growth in 2010 of 3.1%.  This is only one of several gloomy reports that have come out recently.  Last week, the Federal Reserve even downgraded previous projections, and now forecasts that the economy will contract by 0.5 to 1.2%, and unemployment will rise to between 8.5 and 8.8%. 

Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, now chair of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, shared his own downcast views of the current economic climate in a speech before economists and investors at Columbia University on Friday.  The 81-year old Volcker told the audience he doesn't "remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world."  Here are more of his comments: