Soothsayers On NYC's Economy

In its fall preview, New York magazine has assembled five different people—professors, economists, etc.—to give their thoughts on the future of NYC's economy—and it's helpfully arranged like a weather forecast, from "Those Clouds Still Look Ominous" to "Do I See Some Sun?" Here's a little from "The Storm’s Not Over Yet" prognosis (aka, glass is more half empty) from Independent Budget Office director Ronnie Lowenstein, "We’re expecting the city to lose a total of 250,000 jobs, and we’ve lost about half of that at this point. We are anticipating that we will continue to shed jobs through the second quarter of 2010... The financial sector is continuing to lose jobs, and because that remains the main driver for the local economy, that means nearly all of the other sectors of the local economy are shedding jobs as well. Credit remains very tight, and there’s a huge glut of unsold apartments, and that’s causing construction employment to plummet." Okay, let's just think about how the weather is nicer.