Paulson predicts US economy will pick up by end of the year

The US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, signalled yesterday that the worst may soon be over for the American economy. As the price of a barrel of oil tested fresh highs once again, and acknowledging the "headwinds" to growth coming from rapidly rising global energy and food inflation, Mr Paulson nonetheless said: "We have a resilient economy, we have good productivity, we have good efficiency. I think there's a very strong possibility that we will be growing at the end of the year, we will have stronger growth at the end of the year than we have right now." That, however, could still be relatively weak, and Mr Paulson continues to be more worried about growth than inflation. "Our biggest concern is the downturn. There's no doubt that high headline inflation numbers are a real concern to Americans, but core inflation is... [read full story]