Private-equity billionaire David Rubenstein, who co-founded Carlyle Group, said Wednesday that the next US president will probably see "something close to a recession or something that might be close to very low growth."
It's too early to predict what Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton would do as president, he said. What is certain is that they'll face an economic slowdown, he told Bloomberg TV.
He said (emphasis ours):
I think there is no doubt that whoever is president we are likely to have a low growth period of time. We've been growing at relatively modest rates, and we are due for more of an economic slowdown than we've probably had for the last couple of years.
Our last recession ended in June of 2009. Typically you have seven years between recessions. It could go eight years, maybe eight and a half, but it doesn't usually go ten or 11 years. Probably in the first term of the next president we will probably have something close to a recession or something that might be close to very low growth.
It's unlikely that the new president will be able to make much of an impact, Rubenstein said, citing the impending interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve this year and probably next year.
"That'll be independent of whoever the US president is," he said.