Fear not, financial expert Steve Beaman says: The U.S. economy
that shrank by a distressing 2.9 percent in the first quarter of 2014 will turn around in the second quarter.
Beaman, chairman of the Society to Advance Financial Education, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner on
Newsmax TV Thursday that while fear is high among consumers exposed to nonstop news coverage of joblessness and global turmoil, financial professionals and economists have a much brighter outlook.
"So clearly there's a disconnect between the average person and the institutional investor," said Beaman.
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Beaman said the U.S. "had a number of things converging in the first quarter that caused the economy to look very bad on paper."
"We did come out of a very harsh winter," he said, "but also a time when Social Security taxes boosted back up in January after a hiatus they had been on. That took a little bit of spending out of the consumer's pocket.
We did see government deficits drop significantly, and that's a destimulative effect when it happens," he said.
The good news, he said, is that "all of the economists predict a very strong second quarter, relatively speaking."
Beaman acknowledged that especially among people looking toward retirement, the feeling persists that this economy "is not real strong, and it's very fragile."
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