Economist says if double-dip hit, it has come and gone

If there were any chance of a double-dip recession in the U.S., it has already happened and is over now, according to Marci Rossell, the former chief economist for CNBC. “I am not in the double-dip camp,” she said at the IMCA Advanced Wealth Management Conference in Chicago today. She spoke as a last-minute replacement for far more bearish economist Nouriel Roubini. Mr. Roubini, head of Roubini Global Economics, has a different opinion, which he shared in an interview today at the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul. “The question is not whether or if there is going to be a double dip, but whether it's going to be mild or severe with another financial crisis,” Mr. Roubini told CNBC from the sidelines of the conference. “The answer on that depends on the eurozone.” Ms. Rossell's comments in Chicago provided a sharp contrast. “If we were going to have another recession, it would have been in the summer,” when Congress was debating the debt ceiling amid the growing Greek debt crisis and market effects from Japan's earthquake, she said. In fact, that might be exactly what happened. “They may revise figures and say we had a decline in the summer,” Ms. Rossell said. Although the unemployment rate continues to be distressingly high, the rate is dropping, albeit painfully slowly, she said. “Every component of [gross domestic production] has recovered except housing and we are growing at about 2%,” Ms. Rossell estimated. She estimated that the housing cycle is about 10 years from peak to peak, so it will take years before prices recover. The crowd of several hundred financial professionals attending the session didn't seem completely sold on her rosy assumptions. Among the questions asked the session was whether she thought the U.S. dollar was likely to lose its status as a reserve currency, as some economists have predicted. “What are they going to replace it with, the euro?” Ms. Rossell asked, brushing off the concern. She also said that she isn't terribly concerned about China as a threat due to its repressive government. “I don't believe you can have a middle class coexist with totalitarian government,” she said. “A middle class wants to shop and own property. There is no such thing as totalitarian capitalism.”