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The idea that the U.S. economy is going to recover in the next six months is given little credence at a gathering of top academic economists here over the weekend.
A pickup sometime after June is still the Federal Reserve's quasi-official forecast. And leading institutional forecasters surveyed by the Blue Chip Economic Indicators are optimistic.
But that forecast seemed woefully out of touch to many experts who spoke at the annual meeting of the American Economics Association.
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Despite all these efforts, the U.S. economy, hit by an oil shock, a credit crunch and the global downturn, seems to be on a steep slide.
Some argue that the recession has just begun, despite the formal ruling by the business-cycle-dating committee that it began in December 2007.
Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the recession began only in mid-September when Lehman Brothers collapsed.
"We are in a horrible mess. I believe it is very young and it is going to be long and deep," he said. Even in the first quarter of 2010, the economy will likely be weak enough to need macro stimulus, he said.
Martin Feldstein, the prominent Harvard University economist, said there was no longer any basis for believing the recovery could start in the third quarter.
"I think we'll be lucky if by this time next year we see the economy hit the bottom and start turning up," Feldstein said.
"In terms of the level of activity, the end of 2009 is going to look lower than it is today," he said.
