What we are experiencing is a post-bubble bust, similar to what Japan has spent two decades suffering through in the wake of its own real-estate bubble. As I pointed out many, many times as ours took shape, there is a big difference in terms of consequences between a bubble that is focused on equity, like stock market/dot-com mania, and one that uses massive amounts of debt, as our real estate bubble did.

So while there is a great deal of focus on whether we are about to have a double-dip recession, I would say that there is nothing to double dip from. The economy overshot to the downside in 2009 and has snapped back. (While many debated whether our recovery would be V-, W-, L-, or U-shaped, I maintained that something like a square root sign was more likely.)

Cost of this time down: Stagflation