Now that the economy has technically begun growing again, you're going to hear lots of talk about sinking back into a recession. We could be in the middle of "double dip" recessions, according to the jargon, or a "W-shaped" recovery (named for the shape of economic growth traced on a graph).

For one thing, there's a decent chance that another recession might happen. The load of debt on consumers may be enough to keep them from fueling a sustained recovery any time soon. And business investment won't drive a recovery until corporations are sure that the consumer is back for good. According to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, the economy would have still been in recession in the third quarter if it hadn't been for the economic stimulus, notes Calculated Risk. Stimulus effects will fade next year. Krugman issued a "double-dip warning" on Monday.

The other reason you're going to hear about a possible double dip is that Democrats will probably want another stimulus package next year. The better the economy is in November, the less bad Democrats will do in midterm elections. The political business cycle modeled by Yale's William Nordhaus 30 years ago says that the party in power will layer on a stimulus just before an election. Public worrying about a double-dip, no matter what's actually going on in the economy, will help Democrats create an atmosphere favorable to another stimulus. The new one won't be as big as this year's $787 billion monster, however.