BY JULIAN RICHARDSON

Assistant business co-ordinator

richardsonj@jamaicaobserver.com

INTERNATIONAL financial analyst Gregory Fisher has said that the financial crisis which has crippled the US economy — and others across the globe — is not over, and is pessimistic about the North American country’s prospect for the near term.

Fisher, who is managing director of Oppenheimer & Company’s subsidiary Atlanta International, made the prediction on Monday at the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) Fifth Regional Investments and Capital Markets Conference at the Jamaica Pegasus in Kingston.

His pronouncement came against the background of some top US economists just two weeks ago predicting that the US economy will grow by less than two per cent per year over the next decade.

“(The year) 2010, in my opinion, is going to be a ‘lost decade’ or beginning of another,” said Fisher. “When you look at a growth rate of two per cent, it’s going to be very difficult to see America get back on its feet.”

The veteran analyst said that the crisis, which was triggered by the subprime mortgage implosion in the US, is the worst he has ever seen, and recovery will take longer than expected.

“You’re looking at a dismal job market in America, crippled real estate, hobbled banks, slow growth and a consumer that is long dead and buried,” Fisher said, adding “I’ve been in the business for 27 years and I have never seen carnage like this.

“Nothing has ever been as pervasive — We’ve seen death of icons such as AIG, Fannie, Freddie etc,” he continued. “When you have firms such as Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others, in one year get taken out at the same time, something is building and it’s not going to be over in one year.”

The most “troublesome” statistic, Fisher said, is the number of job losses. According to the Associated Press, a record 20 million-plus Americans collected unemployment benefits at some point in 2009, a year that ended with the jobless rate at 10 per cent — officially. But Fisher said that unemployment should actually be much higher.

“Unemployment is really at 20 per cent,” he said. “I know you all hear that the US is only suffering at 10 per cent, but that’s not the case if you look at the BLS (US Bureau of Labour Statistics) and the people that aren’t counted — basically the people who gave up looking for jobs.”

At the American Economic Association’s Annual Meeting on Janauray 3, some of that country’s highly rated economists said that the problems being faced in the job market, real estate and banking will stifle US economic growth over the next decade.