Your Weekend Dose of Doom & Gloom

John Mauldin dug deep into last month’s jobs survey and turned up a real gem:

However you look at this report, it was just ugly. Yet it goes along with regional reports that show a contracting economy and the national ISM (which came out Thursday), which is barely above a contractionary number, at 50.6. The ugly part of the ISM number is that this was the third straight month in which inventories rose more than new orders. Historically, as this chart from Rich Yamarone shows, that suggests we are either in or close to a recession.

Click the link for the scary-ass chart, which I’m not going to reproduce for you here. I just spent the morning playing with the numbers at MetricMash, so I have a whole raft of charts to publish for you during the next week or so. Needless to say, I’m glad for the holiday weekend, because MetricMash has me wanting to drink early and often and heavily.

But let’s get back to Mauldin’s observation about our impending double dip recession.

The White House has been very clear that it sees no risk of a double dip. In fact, just three days ago the Administration issued a report claiming

that in 2012 unemployment will remain at 9.0 percent and economic growth will be only 2.9 percent, and that the 10-year deficit will drop by $1.37 trillion compared to its previous forecast in February.

Here’s the question you should be asking: With inventories growing, productivity declining, consumer purchasing power shrinking and employment stalling — where is 2.9% growth going to come from? We’ll be lucky to manage half that rate for the whole of this year even without the double dip that now seems likely in 2012.

So — on the growing certainty that next year will see 9.5% unemployment (or worse) and maybe 2% GDP growth (at best) this President is going to look like a damn fool. Remember George H.W. Bush and the grocery scanner? Remember George W. Bush’s entire second term? “Out-of-touch and unconcerned” with the lives of ordinary Americans, the media said — and they were at least half-right.

Now, the MSM might try and cover for Obama — but Americans will remember and Americans will know that they were told for three years that we were “moving in the right direction.” The President said that in 2009, in 2010 and again just last month in Iowa.

Is that out of touch enough for ya?

This, more than anything else, could prove to be the President’s undoing.