chief U.S. economist at MFR in New York, a global consulting firm. Add in the risk that Europe's debt crisis deepens, which would hurt not only U.S. exports but also American banks, and annual growth of around 2 percent or less in 2012 may be the best anyone should hope for Economists at HSBC are telling clients to brace for a repeat of 2011, when the economy started strong but fizzled as the days grew longer and temperatures rose. "Over the next two quarters, we expect that growth will average a bit less than 1 percent, reducing the year-over-year growth rate to 1.7 percent," Kevin Logan, HSBC's chief U.S. economist, wrote in a note to clients this week. That's a worrisome prospect for just about everyone -investors, businesses and consumers, not to mention President Barack Obama, who faces a tough re-election battle. It could also persuade the Federal Reserve, which expects growth to land somewhere in a 2.1 percent to 3 percent range this year, to launch a third round of bond buying in the hope of further lowering rock-bottom borrowing costs. The central bank has poured more than $2 trillion into the financial system already through bond purchases. That has helped lower long-term interest rates and added fuel to a market rally. NOT ALL GLOOM-AND-DOOM Data on Friday showed the economy added 115,000 new jobs in April, far fewer than expected on Wall Street and a further slowdown from disappointing gains in March. Employers added more than 200,000 jobs