Bank of America Corporation Chief Executive, Kenneth Lewis, said last week that it is "pretty clear" the U.S. economy is in a recession, and forecast no recovery until the housing market stabilizes around the middle of 2009.
"We won't see a real turnaround until the core problem, housing, reaches a bottom, stabilizes and turns the corner," he said at the Detroit Economic Club.

Lewis said immediate, short-term actions by the government and the private sector to save homeowners and get the foreclosure crisis under control was needed to "get out of this mess." “I can't promise the pain won't get any worse before it starts to get better," he said. Bank of America became a major lender in Michigan last October, when it bought LaSalle Bank Corporation from ABN Amro Holding for $21 billion.

Lewis spoke in Detroit, where the economy has been hit hard by some of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation and a deepening crisis sweeping through the Big Three automakers. The chief executives of General Motors Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler LLC were set to take their case for a $25 billion bailout to the U.S. Congress sometime last week.