Here's a name to remember six months from now: Joseph Carson. The economist works for a firm called Alliance Bernstein, and he thinks the odds of recession are no worse than five percent. While conceding that the housing sector remains a risk, Joe says consumers have already scaled back to adjust. 'Spending trends point to modest growth in the U.S., not a recession.' Better tell that to some of the big retailers, Joe, since, if their forecasts get any darker, they're going to need jugglers and clowns to warm up shareholders before the next round of corporate meetings. Carson sounds like an acolyte of Treasury Secretary Paulson, who not long ago pronounced America's economy 'very, very healthy.' The secretary didn't quote odds like Carson, but we wonder if the latter understands that he is implicitly offering a 20-to-1 bet to anyone with chips on the 'Don't Pass' line. When we checked with our Vegas bookie a week ago, the official recession odds were at around 60% and climbing ' and that was before the recent drop in payrolls, the first in four years. Party On�NOT!! In fairness, it should be noted that few of Carson's fellow economist evidently are as giddy as he is. Out of the more than 50 who were surveyed recently by the Wall Street Journal, the consensus held that there is a 36 percent chance of recession, up from 28 percent a month earlier. And one of Carson's colleagues, Steve East, chief economist at Friedman Billings Ramsey, was verging on apostasy when he put the odds at 60 percent. That may be a far cry from the 95 percent it would take to neutralize Carson's whacky vote, but it's still not too bad for a guy whose livelihood depends on sticking to the party line, with the
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