Double-Dip Recession?

Economics professor Nouriel Roubini says the economy will probably bottom out in the second half of 2009–in other words, it hasn’t really bottomed out yet. And he says that the recovery looks to be very weak–shaped like a “U” and not a “V”. And he says it may give only a brief, weak recovery and then dip into further recession–a “W.”

No note yet on whether we may be headed into the dreaded “X” “Y” or “Z” recoveries. ;-)

OK seriously, he makes some good points. I have the same worry he does. Possibly it’s because my own situation affects my mood (which I’m sure it does) but I think it’s more than that. I think we’re in a major transitory period economically. The information economy is now mature. Manufacturing will continue its decline, especially when it comes to paying people to manufacture thing. So where are jobs going to come from, what exactly is “productivity” going to mean in the coming years? The troubled monetary system is, I suspect, only symptomatic of the fact that it’s growing increasingly harder to say what exactly the national, or world, economy is actually based on. People making things and selling them to each other isn’t the basis anymore. Providing services is the titular basis, but how far does that get us?