David Solomon expects a soft landing

The macro psyche is evolving or breaking a little bit more to the positive...  I think the sentiment is softening a little bit and the view that the chance of a softer landing, both in the U.S. and Europe, is actually increasing.  Our economics team has been pretty "soft landing" over the last 6 months...  Our economics team, even last weekend, went and said that they are now not calling for recession in Europe.  The improvement in the energy situation, the reopening in China, they actually see as a little bit more positive. 

~ David Solomon, Goldman Sachs CEO, CNBC interview in Davos, 6:40 mark, January 18, 2023

Jane Fraser sees a "mild, manageable" recession

I think everyone's converging now in the States more around a mild, manageable recessionary scenario driven by the strength that we've got in the labor markets.

[...]

The vulnerabilities you normally expect heading into slower economic growth don't exist at the moment: strong corporate balance sheets, strong consumer balance sheets and banks in very good health as well.

~ Jane Fraser, Citi CEO, CNBC interview in Davos, 1:55 and 2:55 mark, January 17, 2023

Larry Summers: "soft landings are the triumph of hope over experience"

I'm still cautious, David, but with a little more hope than I had before.  Soft landings are the triumph of hope over experience, but sometimes hope does triumph over experience.  We have seen some slowing of inflation indicators  at the same time we've seen continued strength [in the economy].  That's gotta be what we all want to see.  I still think it's gonna be hard because we need a substantial amount of disinflation that goes beyond volatile components receding, but you have to recognize that the figures are better than somebody like me would've expected three months ago.  So it’s still a very, very difficult job for the Fed, but the situation does look a bit better.  

~ Larry Summers, interview with David Westin in Davos, Bloomberg Television, January 18, 2023

Brian Moynihan: "It'll be a mild recession"

It'll be a mild recession, largely because the stimulus and other things, even though the Fed's raised rates, you see the capacity of the American consumer to keep going.  So basically a mild recession early next year.  But over the last year that's been constantly pushed out so we'll see what happens, but mild recession, slightly down for a couple of quarters and then back to slightly up and then more normal in '24 and into '25.

~ Brian Moynihan, CEO if Bank of America, Yahoo!Finance interview from Davos World Economic Forum, 0:15 mark, January 17, 2023

Lauren Rublin: "few see a deep or lengthy recession in 2023"

[F]ew see a deep or lengthy recession in 2023. 

~ Lauren R. Rublin, moderator of the 2023 Barron's Roundtable, January 9, 2023

Roundtable participants:

If we have a recession, it will be mild.

~ David Giroux, CIO, T. Rowe Price Investment Management

The magic money tree is over.  That and a global energy shock will likely lead to a modest global recession.

~ William Priest, co-CIO, Epoch Investment Partners

If the Fed stays on course on rate hikes, we are going to have a recession.

~ Scott Black, founder, Delphi Management

My assumption is that there won't be a recession, even though we could have two quarters of disappointing GDP.  But any downturn will be brief, so I am assuming no recession.

~ Abby Joseph Cohen, Professor of Business, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University

January 16, 2023

Sean Corrigan on business cycles and the futility of engineering a soft landing

As Austrians, we firmly believe that the credit cycle IS the business cycle and that - to draw upon Hayek - crises start out as monetary ones and later morph into real ones.  We frequently tell anyone who will listed that there are NO soft landings - sometimes adding Mises' pragmatical advice that to try to remedy any sizeable inflation through a deliberate act of contraction (rather than by simply desisting from making matters worse and allowing the system to repair itself) is to 'reverse the car back over the pedestrian one has just knocked down.'

~ Sean Corrigan, "Ring out the old, bring in the new," January 2019