News release: “The economy will continue to experience slow economic growth this year and into early 2009, according to the Economic Advisory Committee (EAC) of the American Bankers Association…The consensus EAC opinion is that real economic growth will slow to around one percent this year, following a trend-like 2.6 percent in 2007, with the unemployment rate rising to 5.75 percent by year end. The Committee was split with regard to whether the current/prospective slowdown would be labeled a recession, but generally agreed that the economy was not going to get dramatically worse.”