Doom and gloom SMU style

By Juan B. Elizondo Jr.
Editor

If you read Senior Writer Jeff Bounds' story on Tuesday about our Industry Outlook event, you would have read an overall optimistic view of 2011 from five of North Texas' corporate leaders. Hang on to your hat, because the view is far less rosy from leaders at the Cox School of Business at SMU.

Dean Al Niemi summed it up this way: "It is the worst economic situation I have seen in my lifetime. (And) 2011 looks a lot like 2010."

The big problem, Niemi and some of his faculty said at an intimate breakfast on Thursday, is unemployment and the lack of job creation. Niemi noted that October was a banner month for U.S. job creation, with about 150,000 new jobs created that month. If that monthly rate was sustained for some time, Niemi said, the unemployment rate would actually jump from about 9 percent to 10 percent.

"It's not enough," he said, adding later, "I really think it's a lost decade."

And to add insult to injury, unemployment plus underemployment actually add up to double digit percentages already, Niemi said.

"The bad news is it is getting worse," he added.

Read the full story, including comments by Davis, Maxwell and Weinstein.

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