American investor, businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett is the latest in a string of notable figures to concede that the US economy is now in recession.

Buffett, the largest shareholder and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway, and the third-richest person in the world, made the comments in an interview with cable network CNBC.

"I would say, by any commonsense definition, we are in a recession," Buffett said.

His comments come on the back of an annual letter to shareholders (PDF), which he released Friday along with Berkshire's 2007 financial report, in which he made similar warnings.

"It's a certainty that insurance-industry profit margins, including ours, will fall significantly in 2008," he said. "Prices are down, and exposures inexorably rise. Even if the U.S. has its third consecutive catastrophe-light year, industry profit margins will probably shrink by 4 percentage points or so.

"If the winds roar or the earth trembles, results could be far worse."

Buffett is one of the most successful investors in the history and an economic expert.

He has previously warned of the expanding trade deficit's slow devaluation of the dollar and other U.S. assets.

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Buffett is not the only notable figure waving the red flag. A survey released last week by the National Association for Business Economics showed that 45 percent of economists are predicting a recession in 2008.

Indeed, economists everywhere are sounding the alarm and asking why the Federal Reserve continues to do little or nothing to counter the rapid downturn as stocks around the world continue to tumble, inflation spirals and the dollar falls to new lows.

"We are becoming increasingly concerned that the authorities in the world do not get it," said Bernard Connolly, global strategist at Banque AIG. "The extent of de-leveraging involves a wholesale destruction of credit. The risk is that the 'shadow banking system' completely collapses," he said.

"I never thought I would see anything like this in my life," said James Steele, an HSBC economist in New York.

"The verdict is in. The Fed's emergency rate cuts in January have failed to halt the downward spiral towards a full-blown debt deflation. Much more drastic action will be needed. As the once unthinkable unfolds, the leaders of global finance dither. For the first time since this Greek tragedy began, I am now really frightened." writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor for the London Telegraph.

Last week the former chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, also said that he believes the US economy is probably already in recession.

Stiglitz hit out at former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan stressing that he "is right that this downturn is going to be the worst downturn in a quarter century, but he's largely to blame,'' adding "It's not just that he was asleep at the wheel, he actively looked the other way''.

Meanwhile instead of attempting to work to try and restore economic prosperity in the US, Greenspan has been urging Gulf states to abandon the dollar peg, the system that mandates Gulf nations to price their assets in U.S. dollars and follow U.S. monetary policy.

Joseph Stiglitz also took a swipe at current Fed chairman Ben S. Bernanke, charging him with failing to counter the deterioration of the real-estate market by procrastinating over interest rate cuts.

Bernanke has also come under heavy criticism from Congressman Ron Paul who held the Fed head to task over his refusal to address the decline of the dollar and its clear link to inflation.

"Inflation comes from the unwise increase in the supply of money credit....to argue that we can continue to debase the currency, which is really the policy of that you're following, purposely debasing value of currency - which to me seems so destructive....it just puts more pressure on the federal reserve to create capital out of thin air in order to stimulate the economy and usually that just goes into mal-investment," said Paul.

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