{"id":13084,"date":"2012-07-12T12:16:13","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T16:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=13084"},"modified":"2026-04-26T18:33:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T23:33:30","slug":"imf-reduces-us-economic-growth-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2012\/07\/imf-reduces-us-economic-growth-forecast\/","title":{"rendered":"IMF reduces US economic growth forecast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenixnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/imf_your_bank.png\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13105\" title=\"imf_your_bank\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenixnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/imf_your_bank.png?resize=490%2C466\" alt=\"\" width=\"490\" height=\"466\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">WASHINGTON \u2014 The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday lowered its estimates for US economic growth for this year and next, and urged policy makers to do more to help the housing sector and support the tepid recovery.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">In its annual assessment of the US economy, the fund also had a sharp warning for Washington: avoid the fiscal cliff at the end of the year, when the Bush-era tax cuts expire and mandatory spending cuts across the government come into effect. The sudden shock could be enough to put the country back into recession, the fund warned, with global repercussions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">In a news conference, Christine Lagarde, the fund\u2019s managing director, also said that Congress should \u2018\u2018promptly\u2019\u2019 raise the debt ceiling to avoid spooking the global debt markets and raising the country\u2019s borrowing costs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">The government is expected to hit its statutory borrowing limit late in 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Should policy makers fail to lessen the end-of-the-year fiscal blow and raise the debt ceiling, \u2018\u2018the domestic effects would be severe, with negative spillovers to the rest of the world,\u2019\u2019 warned Lagarde.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">The fund cut its estimates of US growth to 2 percent in 2012 and 2.3 percent in 2013 in the report. In April, it had estimated growth of 2.1 percent in 2012 and 2.4 percent in 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Other government and private forecasters have done the same recently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">On Tuesday, for instance, Macroeconomic Advisers, a respected private economic consulting firm, cut its estimate of the current pace of economic growth to an annual rate of 1.5 percent per year, down from 2.6 percent in early April. And last month, the Federal Reserve lowered its estimate of 2012 growth, to a range of 1.9 percent to 2.4 percent, from a range of 2.4 percent to 2.9 percent as projected in April.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">The fund cited numerous reasons for the slowdown. The need for households to pay down their debts has cut into consumer spending and reduced economic demand. Job creation has slowed this year, and the unemployment rate remains seriously elevated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">The fund applauded recent efforts to support the housing market.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">But it said that Washington should do more. Specifically, it said that the government should support broader refinancing, and that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac \u2014 the government-sponsored mortgage finance giants \u2014 should allow principal reduction. The Obama administration has backed the idea, but top housing finance regulators have resisted it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/articles.boston.com\/2012-07-04\/business\/32521385_1_debt-ceiling-bush-era-tax-cuts-economic-growth\"><span style=\"color:#0000ff;\">Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday lowered its estimates for US economic growth for this year and next, and urged policy makers to..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[379,152,166,43,84,97],"tags":[229,345,347],"class_list":["post-13084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-economy","category-government","category-media-culture","category-statements","category-us-news","tag-economic-exploitation","tag-reactionary-watch","tag-workers-struggle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/imf_your_bank_13084_242b8.png?fit=600%2C571&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41309,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13084\/revisions\/41309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}