Well I do not mean to brag but I did argue at the time, along with others, that Mark Carney and the BOC were being overly optimistic to which the usual suspects countered that the BOC had super superior models and modelling acumen. So it was, as it is now that Super Mark and the BOC are beating a hasty retreat from their rosy optimism. The globe reports:
The Bank of Canada cut its benchmark lending rate to the lowest possible, and promised to leave it there for as long as a year in order to fight a recession that is deeper and will last longer than previously thought……
The central bank now predicts that Canada’s gross domestic product will shrink by 3 per cent in 2009, compared with a January estimate for a 1.2-per-cent contraction.
The Bank of Canada also abandoned its relatively optimistic estimate that the economy would rebound to expand 3.8 per cent in 2010. The recovery will be far more muted, with an expansion of 2.5 per cent in 2010, the central bank said.
Mr. Carney and his chief advisers on the governing council are trying to restore confidence amid Canada’s first recession since 1992. Employers have shed more than 270,000 jobs since the country fell into a recession in the fourth quarter, a period during which factories produced at only 75 per cent of their capacities, the lowest rate on record…..
Hmm…maybe we start taking fiscal policy a little bit more seriously now and not its faux ami tax cuts?
Related:
Relentlessly Progressive Political Economy 
Central banks of the world hitting their panic button and slashing the cost of capital to zero and trying to stir up inflation by devaluing currency, they should be mindful of the fact that their credibility is becoming questionable. Quite possibly, the outcome of current global economic meltdown may be the end of central banks as we know it. I don’t think anyone will mind in the end.
Lorne