"This is the time of year when you will see a lot of publications publishing forecasts by a group of economists. For example, the Wall Street Journal does this every six months," says Dr. Walden, an economist with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. "So we have a new batch of forecasts out for the second half of the year.

"I would say these forecasts are rather consistent -- you might even call them boring -- because ... for the second half of the year these economists think the economy will continue to grow but at a slower rate," he says. "We’ve talked about that a lot.

"They do see unfortunately a slight up-tick in the unemployment rate –- not anything dramatic, maybe one-tenth or two-tenths of a percent.

"They see the inflation rate staying around 3 percent.

"And although many predict perhaps another interest rate increase by the Fed, overall they don’t see a lot of change in interest rates. So depending on your perspective you may look at that as a good forecast or a bad forecast, but … there does seem to be a lot of consistency -- at least right now -- among these economists."