Eurozone growth can’t move beyond first gear

NOT unlike most forecasters (including World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and US Fed), the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) mid-year update tells the same story of consistent over-estimations since 2009, in a long line of serial misjudgements. They blame unanticipated factors for the inaccuracies. Never their outdated models.

For now, global growth is expected to rebound from the second quarter of 2014 (Q2’14) to register a marked-down rise of 3.4% for 2014 as a whole; projection for 2015 remains at 4%. Similarly, growth in the eurozone is “expected to strengthen to 1.1% in 2014 and 1.5% in 2015.” Still too optimistic, I feel, given the prospective conditions. Today, we know better.