(left to right)
David Anderson
Financial Counselors, Inc.
Craig Hakkio
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Michael Stellern
Rockhurst University
Jim Moffett
UMB Bank
Bill Greiner
UMB Bank
Ernie Goss
Creighton University
Chuck Krider
University of Kansas
Randy Moore
Blue Chip Economic Indicators
Jeff Pinkerton
Mid-America Regional Council
Tim Michel
Bank of America

High Clouds throughout the Day; Some Brightening In Late Afternoon; 35% Chance of Showers

Ten leading economists from the region gathered at Ingram’s offices early this January for the magazine’s annual Economic Forecast. Despite a slowing economy, spirits were high and the outlook relatively positive.

2006

Craig Hakkio, Special Advisor on Economic Policy with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, chaired the meeting and shared with his colleagues a summary of the year just past.

Although the nation experienced fairly strong growth in 2005, Hakkio noted, growth did slow to below potential in 2006. The first quarter was very strong but, beyond that the growth in Gross Domestic product (GDP) ranged somewhere between 2 and 2.25 percent.

From the third quarter of last year to the third quarter of this year, growth was near three percent, which Hakkio feels is about the economy’s long run potential. But again, that reflects the strong first quarter.

The other key issue from the Fed’s perspective was inflation. Core inflation did pick up during the year at least when measured from a year ago. That was worrisome for the Federal Reserve. More recently, however, core inflation numbers have been starting to come down. As the nation enters 2007 it looks as though GDP growth is below trend, but inflation is higher than what Hakkio thinks the Federal Reserve would desire.