This prospect is foreshadowed in an important analysis of the Aspin review, and the strategy and force structure decisions flowing from it, published in the New York Times on 19 June 1993 by Dov Zakheim (see the attachment).
We expect 1.7% growth in real personal consumption expenditures in the four quarters ending September 2008 even under our soft-landing scenario, below the 2% four-quarter low in the 2001 recession (see graph and further discussion in the attachment.) In recent years, we predicted and explained the resilience in U.S. consumption growth in terms of job prospects and the high actual household savings rate.