As a result, the current business expansion, finishing its seventh year of uninterrupted growth, should become the second-longest in U.S. history by the end of the year. And they could be just as wrong about 1998. The Asian problems are by no means resolved. Turmoil has spread from smaller economies such as Thailand's to South Korea's, the world's 11th-largest. The primary conduit of weakness would be trade.
Exports account for nearly an eighth of total U.S. economic output.
Pacific Rim countries buy 30 percent. That said, U.S. prosperity is so robust and broad-based that most analysts have a difficult time believing a recession is near. Mass. That's because, absent the dampening impact of Asia, the Federal Reserve probably would raise interest rates to induce a slowdown with the aim of keeping inflation tame. The Asian crisis should shave about a half percentage point off U.S. growth, Wyss said. High debt levels and a volatile stock market should restrain spending by American consumers.