'The economy faces troubles too pervasive and entrenched to be solved any time soon, analysts say'

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-econ5-2008oct05,0,3369735.story

No rescue in sight for what ails economy

Even if the financial bailout works, the economy faces troubles too pervasive and entrenched to be solved any time soon, analysts say.

By Peter G. Gosselin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 5, 2008

WASHINGTON -- While Americans have spent the last month transfixed by the spectacle of one financial giant after another crashing to the ground, the rest of the U.S. economy has been sinking in the muck.

By now, the process is so far advanced that, even after passage of the Bush administration's $700-billion financial rescue plan Friday, the nation's economic options span the unappealing gamut from bad to worse.

"The wheels seem to be coming off the economy right now," said Brian P. Sack, vice president of the respected forecasting firm of Macroeconomic Advisers. "It's hard to see how we avoid a recession, and it could prove a tough one to climb out of."

Even if the financial bailout plan begins to work, the nation will be lucky if all it experiences is a bad slowdown. The alternative, economists say, is something much worse -- a contraction that might go on for years.

The latest sign of trouble came Friday when the government reported that American employers sliced September payrolls by 159,000 jobs, the ninth straight month of losses and one that puts the country on track to shed a million jobs this year.