MC&E: Experts Eye Economic Rebound

(Michael James - TT) Former CNBC Chief Economist Marci Rossell discusses the U.S. economy at ATA's Management Conference and Exhibition

ORLANDO, Fla. - While conventional wisdom and popular opinion say that the American economy is struggling, a trio of experts on the subject told convention goers at the American Trucking Associations' Management Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Fla. that things aren’t really that bad.

In a session titled "All Eyes on the Economy," former CNBC Chief Economist Marci Rossell said that people are "irrationally anxious," and that the economy was not the reason for many of these fears.

"I think all of these things are coming together at once to produce cultural, economic and political changes," she said. "Those changes are producing the anxiety that's felt today."

Rossell said that recent economic data is not as bad as it appears, and that U.S. economy is programmed to grow.

Economists Donald Broughton and Martin Labbe both agreed.

Broughton, senior transportation analyst for A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. in St. Louis, Mo., said that truck tonnage has turned positive and that has a reputation of being predictive of the gross domestic product.

Labbe, president of Martin Labbe of Ormond Beach, Fla., said that while the growth numbers didn’t look strong, the size of the U.S. economy made any growth significant.

"If you put 1 percent growth on an elephant, that adds quite a bit of meat to the elephant," Labbe said. "If we grow our economy by 1 percent, that's adding a bit of meat to it."

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