How Strong a Recovery; What Impact on Communications and Technology?

Since 70 percent of U.S. economic activity is generated by consumers, consumer behavior will be key to the arrival of a sustained period of growth. Conversely, anything that imperils consumer spending will weaken, choke off or abort any recovery.

In the past, this hasn't been an especially tough question to answer. Historically, recessions and recoveries roughly conformed to the principle of the bigger the bust, the bigger the boom, and vice versa. That, in turn, was underpinned by the underlying robust health of the U.S. economy.

Real growth in the four quarters following postwar recessions averaged 6.6 percent and 4.3 percent over the following five years.

Those figures are substantially above what economists seem to be calling for at the moment. The current recession has lasted a record seven quarters and has been marked by a near-record average gross domestic product decline of 1.8 percent per quarter.

All of that would, by historical standards, lead to a prediction of a powerful and sustained recovery. Yet forecasts of a two-percent recovery in growth are only one-fourth as strong as postwar experience suggests.

That suggests economists believe something has changed. We can argue about what the changes might be, and what is causing them. But this is not a political issue. As a simple matter of hope for America to get back to work, the anemic growth forecast is worrisome.

As someone who historically has tracked new technology and communications, as well as a citizen who wants the best for his country, it must be said: this does not bode well for our nation, our children or faster deployment of all sorts of interesting and useful tools people can use to enrich their lives and their work.

We might disagree from time to time about what should be done. That isn't the point. Clearly, something rather important is happening; something that defies historical precedent.

Perhaps the economists are wrong. They have been wrong in the past. I hope they are wrong about this. I continue to believe in the power of technology to make a huge difference in peoples' lives, and to fuel robust economic growth, which is, first and foremost, the way we are able to increase wealth and spread it around. I hope, for our nation's sake, that this continues to be true.

For that reason, I really hope the economists are dead wrong about the recovery rate. If not, we have some serious soul searching to do. Perhaps we have been dead wrong about some of our core beliefs.