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Odds of a Double Dip: A Sampling of Opinions. Plus, Wolfers on Twitter

(liquidlibrary)

So by now you’re hopefully aware that the stock market completely bombed today. As I type, the Dow is down more than 500 points, its worst day since December 2008. (Official day’s tally is -512.76) And just like that it seems, the recovery is over. Well it was fun while it lasted; kind of.
Our resident macro economic guru Justin Wolfers has come up for air from his Twitter experiment (follow him @justinwolfers) and sent over this interesting sample of recent opinions from a handful of economically savvy folks, all giving their odds of the economy entering another recession:
Larry Summers: “at least a 1-in-3 chance.”
Marty Feldstein: “now a 50 percent chance.”
Ryan Avent: “more likely than not.”
Justin Wolfers: “40% chance and peak was 4 months ago” and “The guacamole has spoken.”
Don Kohn, Vincent Reinhart, Brian Madigan: “between 20% and 40%.”
Matt Yglesias: “precisely 31.22%.”
Brad DeLong: “the odds now are 50-50.”
Christy Romer: “The risks have gone up…compared to where we were six months ago.”
Bob Hall: “We certainly are in a more vulnerable situation now.”
Jeff Frankel: “not necessarily enough to push the probability over one half.”
Jay Carney: “we do not believe that there is a threat there of a double-dip recession.”
Justin has had a busy day today on Twitter. Clearly, he flipped heads this morning. Here’s a sampling of what he’s been tweeting about:

Justin Wolfers
JustinWolfers Justin Wolfers
Brookings lunch table discussion: Nothing happened today, so why are financial markets moving? Do they only read the data with a lag?
Justin Wolfers
JustinWolfers Justin Wolfers
If tomorrow’s job report were a presidential debate, I’d congratulate the campaign on doing such a great job in dampening expectations.
Justin Wolfers
JustinWolfers Justin Wolfers
Gallup’s daily confidence measures in freefall. 54% rate condition as poor: http://t.co/j1kJsAE 78% say getting worse: http://t.co/5zIGdzx
Justin Wolfers
JustinWolfers Justin Wolfers
Inflation expectations coming down sharply: http://t.co/eAfBO3l
Justin Wolfers
JustinWolfers Justin Wolfers
Intrade suggests rising risks of recession–and they are using the more severe 2 negative quarters definition. http://twitpic.com/60qv4b

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