BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Recent benchmark revisions show that the U.S. recession was deeper and its recovery has been shallower than previously reported. What we learned over the summer does not suggest that the dynamics currently affecting the U.S. economy have changed, just that the magnitudes are much larger.
In short, the housing market remains a mess, the consumer is weak, and government actions can be expected to reduce growth after materially boosting it in recent years. American households have experienced a major shock to their net worth, which has fallen from a peak of 6.4 times income pre-crisis to 5.0 in the second quarter of this year (Chart 2).