Governments are running out of ways to counter a “massive slowdown” or the risk of a double-dip recession, Roubini said.”A year ago we had all these policy bullets,” he said. “We could push down rates to zero, we had (quantitative easing), we could do a budget deficit of 10 percent of GDP (or) backstop the financial system.”

“Banks at this point are too big to fail, but also too big to be bailed, especially in Europe where the sovereigns are in trouble and therefore the ability to backstop the financial system is not there,” he said.

Roubini said he was unimpressed with the June US employment report, pointing out that the jobless rate fell because of a large number of discouraged workers leaving the labor force, and also noted recently weak data on manufacturing, retail sales and housing.

“Everything signals a slowdown of the US, a slowdown of Europe, a slowdown of Japan and a slowdown of China,” he said.

The US economy will grow at a rate of 1.5 percent, while the euro zone and Japan will see growth close to 0 and China will grow at a rate of 7 percent, he said.

Dr. Dismal?

While not predicting a double-dip recession, with economic growth at a rate of 1.5 percent “everything becomes worse,” Roubini said.