On January 13, President Obama described the economy as "strong" and "durable".
Two weeks later CNN described the economy from the Q4 GDP report as "grinds to a near halt". Later that week the trade deficit widened for December, which means the Q4 GDP will probably be revised even closer to zero.

OK. So it's one flat quarter. No big deal, right? After all, we've seen this before and the economy has bounced back.
Except things have gotten worse since then. Especially in manufacturing.

A key report on U.S. manufacturing in January showed the sector contracted for the fourth straight month but the pace of deterioration stabilized.

Fortunately, since our manufacturing sector has been gutted over the past generation, we are a service economy. Which makes today's report alarming.

We just got the clearest sign yet that something is wrong with the US economy.
Markit Economics' monthly flash services purchasing manager's index, a preliminary reading on the sector, fell into contraction for the first time in over two years.
...
Wednesday's data shows "a significant risk of the US economy falling into contraction in the first quarter," according to Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.
According to Markit's release, business activity was slammed by scarce new-work opportunities, as clients lacked confidence in the economic outlook, and snowy weather on the East Coast.
Markit noted that service providers had the weakest business outlook in nearly six years.
"Slumping business confidence and an increased downturn in order book backlogs suggest there's worse to come," Williamson wrote.

The global energy bust has largely gone unnoticed by the American public, but it means more than just low gas prices.
In energy producing states it means recession.

As economists size up the chances of the first nationwide slump since 2009, pockets of the country are already contracting. Four states -- Alaska, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming -- are in a recession, and three others are at risk of prolonged declines, according to indexes of state economic performance tracked by Moody’s Analytics...
Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma are all at risk of recession, according to Moody’s. Wyoming and North Dakota’s economies have declined for at least the past 10 months, according to the Philadelphia Fed.

Four states in recession and three about to be. It starts to add up.
In Silicon Valley, venture capital funding is drying up while the Tech IPO bubble has completely burst.

So far the economic downturn has been largely ignored by the political debate.

No one should interpret this as anything remotely similar to 2008. It's not in any way.
For instance, this time the biggest economic danger is from overseas.

But the capital flows are now reversing, turning negative for the first time since 2006, with net outflows from developing countries in 2015 exceeding $600 billion — more than one-quarter of the inflows they received during the previous six years...This is not the first time that developing countries have faced the challenges of managing pro-cyclical hot capital, but the magnitudes this time are overwhelming. During the Asian financial crisis, net outflows from the East Asian economies were only $12 billion in 1997.

Very soon people will start asking banks how much exposure they have to China and oil-producing countries?