Whoever approved this lead paragraph should be fired.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy is in recession and will contract at a faster pace in the fourth quarter, extending the decline into early 2009 as high unemployment crimps consumer spending, a survey showed.

Oh, so “a survey” says the economy “will” contract? I wonder if the reporter asked the survey to pick the lottery numbers for her tomorrow as well since she’s so certain that it can predict the future. And maybe she can lay down some “sure thing” cash on the Super Bowl, since this survey is casting the runes with metaphysical certainty all the way into early 2009.

Alternately, she can rachet down the doom and gloom and clue us in to the fact that she’s not just talking about “a survey” but “a survey of economic forecasters”. Then, somewhere near the head of the article, she could note just how wrong economic forecasters are. Otherwise all her article does is misrepresent educated guesses as fact.

As for the forecasters, well they’re a bunch of dark little storm clouds aren’t they? Truth is, no one really knows for sure from week to week what our economy will do over the short run (and a quarter is fairly short-term). If a couple banks rally and the government pulls back from sinking a bazillion dollars into a bunch of incompetently-run companies, then these forecasters are going to have to revise their guesses yet again and Reuters will run another article without even apologizing for the deceits of this one.

And the MSM wonders why Americans aren’t particularly well-informed about the economy? Take a look in the mirror, guys.