by Calculated Risk on 6/30/2010 01:39:00 PM

From Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart: Recovery and the Challenge of Uncertainty

The central question is whether the recovery that is now well under way will be sustained or will falter, resulting in a slowdown or even a second recession—the so-called double dip.
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Rising consumer activity surprised many in the first quarter of the year, but in April and May consumers seemed to put away their wallets to a certain extent. ... Business spending on equipment and software has been strong in the first half of the year. ... Manufacturing production is up about 8 percent over the past year through May.
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Here's a key point about these contributors to recovery—each could be transitory. The economy has not yet arrived at a state where healthy and sustainable final demand is underpinning growth.

... I believe the recovery will move ahead at a modest pace and unemployment will gradually come down. Impediments to growth are being removed. Financial market function is being restored. Private balance sheets are being repaired. And necessary structural adjustments are under way.

The past few weeks, however, have seen a slight retrenchment from the mind-set of optimism and growing confidence that prevailed earlier in the year.
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Several recent sources of uncertainty have clouded the outlook. I will cite four, including the oil spill in the Gulf.

First is European sovereign debt. ... Our financial system here in the United States has rather small and manageable direct exposure to the Greek government and the other sovereign borrowers. But as the situation has evolved, exposure to European banks as well as foreign and local corporations in the affected countries has complicated the estimation of risk.
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A second source of uncertainty is ongoing state and local fiscal tightening.
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A third area of uncertainty is commercial real estate. Banks across the country, especially small and regional banks, are heavily exposed to the commercial property sector and face a heavy docket of loan restructurings that may require sizable write-downs.
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And there is the oil spill, which is, naturally, the central environmental and economic concern here in Louisiana and more broadly in the Gulf region. ...

The economic effect at the national level has been limited. I'm prepared to believe, however, that this relentless environmental disaster is an additional factor holding back consumer and business confidence. The spill disheartens us all and, I believe, makes the public a little more reticent to assume a smooth recovery path.
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So, to pull this together, a recovery of the national economy is proceeding but not yet with solid and sustainable underpinnings. Inflation appears restrained. The outlook from here is beset by somewhat more than normal uncertainty.