Forecasts for Growth Drop, Some Sharply

``A drumbeat of disappointing data about consumer behavior, factory sales and weak hiring in recent weeks has prompted economists to ratchet down their 2011 economic forecasts to as little as half what they expected at the beginning of the year... The slow place of the economy's expansion is not entirely surprising, though it is clearly painful for those who are out of work and whose homes are worth far less than a few years ago. Many economists, most prominently Kenneth S. Rogoff and Carmen M. Reinhart, have emphasized that recovering from a financial crisis takes much longer than from a normal cyclical recession. ''