Fox Business Channel - Alan Greenspan: US Economy Not Accelerating By Any Means!

Article by Julia Limitone in Fox Business Channel's website.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told FOX Business on Thursday that the U.S. economy Opens a New Window. is poised to slow down very soon.

“Just wait until the fourth quarter number comes out, it’s going to be down around 2.5 percent,” Greenspan said during an exclusive interview with Maria Bartiromo. “We have monthly data which suggests that we are slowing down, we are not going negative, but we are definitely slowing down – the rate of growth as we go into 2019 probably at a 2 to 2.5 percent pace maximum.”

Gross domestic product (GDP) increased 3.5 percent in the third quarter, according to a revised estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, but Greenspan said gross domestic savings, which consists of savings of the household, private corporate and public sectors, is a critical factor in determining his outlook.

“Gross domestic savings is the key funding to capital investment in the Unites States, and as a result we are seeing capital investments slowing down,” he said.

Earlier this week, White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett told FOX Business Opens a New Window.  a capital spending boom is giving the U.S. economy momentum.

 “A capital spending boom like the one that we’re in, usually takes three to five years,” he told Bartiromo. “We’ve had about a 10 percent increase in capital [spending] since this time last year and that should continue if it’s a normal spending boom for the next three to five years.”

However in Greenspan’s opinion, the U.S. has entered a period of stagflation driven by runaway spending and entitlement programs.

“We are not funding our entitlements and as a result we have this huge deficit – a trillion dollar budget deficit,” he said. “You can’t exist with that sort of phenomenon without inflation re-emerging itself.”

The annual inflation rate in the U.S. fell to 2.2 percent in November from 2.5 percent in October, according to the Labor Department.

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