http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21612168-weighing-evidence-how-long-will-expansion-last
Some economists are worried that another recession may be right around the corner. This article states that our current expansion is 5 years old which is "longer than the post-war average of 58 months".
Later in the article, it is noted that recessions have become rarer in recent memory. The three previous expansions prior to the 2008 economic collapse lasted for an average of 95 months. Rudi Dornbusch, an economist, said "post-war expansions didn't die in their beds; they were murdered by the Federal Reserve." By saying this, Dornbusch is stating that through inflation, profits in the economy as a whole deteriorated, prices and wage rose as well, which was followed by the Fed raising interest rates. This process leads to recessions.
Although interest rates have been drastically low since the beginning of the recovery because of low inflation as well as slow growth in the economy. Because of this, the Fed has "little firepower to respond to another shock."
One of the main points of the article was to highlight the fact that the Fed can only do so much to protect against recessions. Processes that have worked in the past sometimes fail to work in the present and the economy is unpredictable - Our guesses can be based off the past, but every now and then something changes course which unpredictably causes a recession.
This article was interesting in showing how economists are attempting to predict the end of the current economic expansion that is taking place in the United States. The author was also clear in pointing out that these predictions are not guarantees, and that there is some disagreement in predictions even among professionals. Whatever the case may be, the likelihood that the next recession will be as deep and severe as the most recent one is slim, which is somewhat reassuring for those of us who anticipate entering the workforce in the next several years.
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