California crawls out of recession slowly

Amid a recession that has continued to plague the nation, a team of economists at the UCLA Anderson School of Management is predicting the harrowing effects of our economic downturn will slowly fade, although significant progress is unlikely to be noticeable until 2012.

The persisting problem was that consumers were spending money that they would never receive, particularly when buying houses in anticipation that their values would increase, said Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast.

Now that consumers are finding out they are actually less wealthy than anticipated, they are attempting to rebuild their assets by saving, he said.