If there’s a proverb that captures the outlook for the U.S. economy in the New Year, it’s the one that says: “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

Regardless of any formal announcement of whether or not the United States drops into an actual recession, the ongoing credit crisis guarantees a contraction of the American economy by virtually every measure we know. That period of darkness will be marked by a dramatic slowdown in economic activity, as well as by rising unemployment, additional declines in U.S. stock prices, and constant volatility. It could last as long as 12-18 months.

But when the dawn does come, it will be one to remember. If U.S. President-elect Barack Obama gets it right - and I have every reason to believe that he will - then investors will be presented with the greatest investment opportunity of our generation. At that point, shares of American companies will be at such low levels that wholesale buying by individuals, mutual funds, pension funds, institutional money managers, and foreign-controlled sovereign wealth funds, will generate gains that will not only make us whole, they will make us rich once again.

A Market Mandela

Creating an analysis of the U.S. economy’s outlook for the New Year is akin to creating a mandala, a geometric work of art whose pattern, symbolically or metaphysically, represents a microcosm of the universe from the human perspective. In some Buddhist temples, mandalas are made of tiny colored beads, painstakingly created by several monks as a form of meditation. In celebration of the ever-changing nature of the universe, the mandala is then joyously shaken by its creators, until it is once again nothing more than chaos embodied in a box of colored beads.

Regardless of the big picture, analysis of a mandala - or the economy - always starts at the center and emanates outward. With the U.S. economy, that centerpiece is credit. The credit crisis has shaken the complex mandala that is our economy and transformed the United States economy into chaos. It’s complex because this economic-forecast mandala derived its form from thousands of individual pieces - in the case of the economy, from scores of data points, many of which are currently dark and foreboding.

The credit crisis we are experiencing results from the contraction - or worse, the cessation - of lending. Under normal circumstances, institutions and markets freely facilitate capital movement between lenders and borrowers. But that’s not happening, now.

Because of a lack of transparency into the balance sheets of borrowers holding such complex and illiquid securities as collateralized debt obligations, credit-default swaps, and non-performing loans, and because of increasing recessionary fears affecting businesses and households, lenders don’t want to increase their loan exposure. Banks are holding onto the cash and liquid securities they control, using them as a cushion against their own potential losses. The U.S. Treasury Department’s direct-to-bank capital injections do not alter these banking realities. In fact, as a Money Morning investigative story recently demonstrated, instead of using these taxpayer-provided infusions to increase their lending, these banks are using the money to finance takeover deals.

The Recipe for a Recession

Whether or not the United States is technically in a recession ultimately will be divined by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The business-cycle dating committee of this privately run, nonprofit economic research group is right now studying five factors in an attempt to determine if the United States has entered a recession and, if so, when that downturn started, MarketWatch.com reported. Those five factors are:

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• Industrial production.
• Employment
• Income.
• Retail sales.

Regardless of any formal announcement by the NBER of whether we’re in a recession, the credit crisis guarantees a general contraction of economic activity, by every measure.

“Any doubt that we’re officially in a recession can be put aside,” Anthony Karydakis, former chief U.S. economist for JPMorgan Asset Management (JPM) - and now a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business - recently wrote in Fortune magazine. “The rapid deterioration of labor markets points to a sharp decline in hours worked and output in the fourth quarter. This is likely to lead to a decline in personal consumption to the tune of 5.0% or so for that period. Since [consumer spending] makes up about 70% of the economy, the stage has already been set for real GDP to shrink at a more than 4.0% rate in the fourth quarter.”

Confirmation of that belief is evident by looking at each of the NBER’s five key indicators.

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP): The U.S. Commerce Department estimated that the U.S. economy, as measured by GDP, rose 0.9% in the first quarter. In the second quarter, GDP advanced an estimated 2.8%. For the third quarter, GDP declined an estimated 0.3%. My own econometric models suggest that GDP actually contracted at a 1.5% pace in the third quarter and will decline another 2.75% in the fourth quarter. For the year, that would mean the U.S. economy actually fell 0.55%. The U.S. economy last posted a full year’s negative GDP in 1991, when it declined 0.2%. Verdict: Recession.
• Industrial Production: This measure of output by the nation’s factories and mines dropped 2.8% in September, and a very steep 6.0% in the third quarter. Verdict: Recession.
• Employment: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday that October’s unemployment rate was 6.5%, a jump of 0.4%, which was double what most economists expected, and also its highest level in 14 years. The economy has now lost a total of 1.2 million jobs since the beginning of the year, with nearly half of those losses occurring in the last three months alone, pointing to an acceleration in the pace of erosion in labor markets.