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Nouriel Roubini thinks the US economy is dangerously close to a double dip recession, and covers the topic in detail on his website. Below are his introductory notes on the topic of what kind of recovery we’re experiencing, and these topics are covered in detail on his site (which is subscriber based).

A slew of poor economic data over the past two weeks suggests that the U.S. economy is headed for a U-shaped recovery—at best—in 2010. The macro news, including data on consumer confidence, home sales, construction and employment, actually suggests a significant downside risk even to the anemic levels of growth which RGE forecast for H1. The U.S. faces continued challenges in H2—particularly as historic levels of fiscal stimulus fade—and appears far too close to the tipping point of a double-dip recession. more…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 36,000 private sector jobs in February. January was revised from -20k to -26k jobs lost and December was revised from -150k to -109k jobs lost. This means 25 of the last 26 months have shown losses, putting the job loss toll since the recession began in December 2007 at 8.4 million. In 2009, 4.8m jobs were lost. BLS also reported that 14.8 million people are unemployed. This is a 9.7% unemployment rate, up 4.8% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 8.8 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 4.1m million since January 2008, and increased by 500k this month, offsetting a big drop in January. January’s drop from 9.2m to 8.3m was the first improvement in nine months. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 8.8 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 8.8 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. Markets are interpreting today’s report as positive—stocks are rallying, bonds are selling off, and rates are higher—but this statistic is mostly undiscussed in market coverage.

The second of three 4Q09 GDP readings came in today at +5.9%, making a second consecutive quarter of positive GDP growth after four consecutive quarters of economic contraction (a 60yr record for consecutive GDP declines). The strong initial GDP reading was due largely to acceleration in private inventory investment, a deceleration in imports, and an upturn in nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by decelerations in federal government spending and in Personal Consumption Expenditures (which we’ll hear more about Monday). Real GDP in 2009 declined -2.4% versus a +0.4% gain in 2008.

Stocks are up modestly on this GDP update today and bonds (including Treasuries and Mortgages) are up about 22 basis points, which is a big gain. The main reason seems to be because increasing inventories isn’t viewed by markets as a meaningful or sustainable contributor to GDP growth. Consumer Spending needs to be higher before any sustained GDP growth can occur, and the data don’t suggest we’re there yet. All GDP figures are ‘real’ or inflation-adjusted, and the next reading will come on March 26. The last nine quarters of GDP are at the bottom of this post, and you can also visit our Data section to see historical GDP figures, graphs and download data. more…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 20,000 private sector jobs in January, and December was revised from -85k to -150k. This means 24 of the last 25 months have shown losses, putting the job loss toll since January 2008 at 8.42 million. In 2009, 4.8m jobs were lost. BLS also reported that 14.8 million people are unemployed. This is a 9.7% unemployment rate, up 4.8% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 8.3 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 3.6 million since January 2008, but dropped significantly this month for the fist time in nine months (it was 9.2m last month). This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 8.3 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 8.3 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. But the significant drop this month along with the drop in unemployment is encouraging. more…

The first of three 4Q09 GDP readings came in today at +5.7%, making a second consecutive quarter of positive GDP growth after four consecutive quarters of economic contraction (a 60yr record for consecutive GDP declines). The strong initial GDP reading was due largely to acceleration in private inventory investment, a deceleration in imports, and an upturn in nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by decelerations in federal government spending and in Personal Consumption Expenditures (which we’ll hear more about Monday). Real GDP in 2009 declined -2.4% versus a +0.4% gain in 2008.

Markets initially traded up on the news but have paired gains which makes sense because without the Cash for Clunkers program that helped in Q3, Personal Consumption Expenditures actually dropped from 2.8% in Q3 to 2% in Q4. Consumer spending is a key component of GDP, so this GDP number could get revised lower in the next two readings. All GDP figures are ‘real’ or inflation-adjusted, and the next reading will come on February 26. The last nine quarters of GDP are at the bottom of this post, and you can also scroll to our Data section to see historical GDP figures, graphs and download data. more…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 85,000 private sector jobs in December, and November was revised to a positive 4,000 jobs. This means 23 of the last 24 months have shown losses, putting the job loss toll since January 2008 at 7.24 million, which is the largest drop (as a percentage of all jobs) since World War II ended in 1945. In 2009, 4.16 million jobs were lost. BLS also reported that 15.3 million people are unemployed. This is a 10% unemployment rate, up 5.1% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 9.2 million people (unchanged from last month) who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 4.5 million since January 2008, but has been little changed in the past eight months. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 9.2 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 9.2 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. more…

As you can plainly see from this photo (click for full size) taken on a San Francisco residential neighborhood sidewalk, we could never make this up. We could also never properly describe this Sidewalk Economic Indicator. Who left a mess of clues like this? Was it a Realtor or mortgage broker who turned to drugs? Or was it a pre-Med student who then chose real estate just before the market crashed? Please caption and/or quip with your theory.

CFO Magazine’s interview with David Levy, chairman of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, an economic research and consulting firm, is worth a read by those interested in semantics. The issue is whether our recession is The Great Recession or a Contained Depression. Some excerpts below.

…Levy originally coined the term [Contained Depression] to describe the recession of 1990–1991 and the subsequent halting, jobless recovery. more…

Fed Chairman Bernanke spoke at the Economics Club of Washington today. Here’s the full speech, and below are key excerpts with subheads added by us. There’s an entire section of the speech devoted to ‘how to avoid crises in the future’ and it discusses proposed regulations. But below covers economic and inflation outlook as well as Fed exit strategy.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
…In the United States, the unemployment rate, which was as low as 4.4 percent in March 2007, currently stands at 10 percent. more…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 11,000 private sector jobs in November. This is the 23rd straight month of losses, putting the job loss toll since January 2008 at 7.16 million, with 4.08 million of these job losses occurring in 2009. After six straight months of losses greater than 500k from November 2008 to April 2009, job losses leveled off despite one spike in June 2009, and today’s report is a big surprise with losses decreasing so significantly. BLS also reported that 15.4 million people are unemployed. This is a 10% unemployment rate, up 5.1% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 9.2 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 4.5 million since January 2008, but has been little changed in the past seven months. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 9.2 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 9.2 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. more…