The good news is 80% of economists believe the recession is over. The bad news is that 80% of economists are wrong

"The good news is that this deep and long recession appears to be over, and with improving credit markets, the U.S. economy can return to solid growth next year without worry about rising inflation," said Reaser.

SHOOT: The recovery they're mooting comes at the expense of jobs. Cut staff until you're back in the black. The other problem is that fundamentally, nothing has really changed. Derivative debt is still a quadrillion, trillions in credit are still wiped off world markets, and the source problem, higher energy prices, are still a reality. With the economy idling along, how is it possible that oil prices are at $70. Two or three years ago they were below $60 when the world economy was firing on all cylinders. In my opinion, we may see a slight uptick, for one or two or three months, followed by sky high energy prices, and a repeat contraction, probably worse than the last one has been, and longer [since the bailout money is now gone.

"The survey found that the vast majority of business economists believe that the recession has ended but that the economic recovery is likely to be more moderate than those typically experienced following steep declines," said NABE President-elect Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University.

clipped from news.yahoo.com NEW YORK – More than 80 percent of economists believe the recession is over and an expansion has begun, but they expect the recovery will be slow as worries over unemployment and high federal debt persist. Forecasters now expect the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, to advance at a 2.9 percent pace in the second half of the year, after falling for four straight quarters for the first time on records dating to 1947. They expect a 3 percent gain in 2010. The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in September from 9.7 percent, the Labor Department said earlier this month, the highest point in 26 years. Forecasters expect the unemployment rate to continue to rise, to 10 percent in the first quarter of next year, before edging down to 9.5 percent by the end of 2010. The recession, the worst since the 1930s, has eliminated a net total of 7.2 million jobs. More job cuts were announced last week.