Meet the Street: The Case for 'Muddling Through'

Here are three years of recent market history condensed into one sentence: The premillennium excess of 1999 begat a massive tech bubble that popped in 2000, which produced a slowdown of corporate profits in 2001 as the economy contracted and officially entered a recession. Got all that?

Now that we're all caught up, what will happen in 2002?

To answer that question, TheStreet.com talked with Christoph Bianchet, an economist with Credit Suisse Asset Management. A recent ¿migr¿ to New York from Zurich, where he was a portfolio manager, Bianchet brings a global perspective to the table, and he is fluent in German, English, French and Spanish (Today also happens to be his birthday.)

According to Bianchet, 2002 will be a decent year, one with growth due to the shrinking of inventories rather than an increase in demand. In other words, don't get too excited; the recovery will be slow and not entirely pain-free. ...