Could China's slowdown throw the U.S. into reverse

The conventional economic wisdom is that the ongoing U.S. recovery is so well established by now that it can weather China's slowdown and the emerging market slide that decline has set into motion. Even as word came out last week that Canada, America's largest trading partner, had slipped into recession -- joining a growing list of countries contending with a slowing China -- investors still had faith in fortress America. Few are suggesting the U.S. is also in danger of entering a tailspin.

In a note this week, for example, analysts with BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research warn that emerging markets could "transmit" weakness to developed markets like the U.S. But it predicted that their slowdown "should be contained as stabilizing commodities, depreciating foreign exchange and easy global monetary policy supports growth."

But at least one veteran forecaster dismisses this sanguine view, bluntly predicting that the U.S. will tumble back into recession next year. David Levy, chairman of the independent Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, said analysts need to keep in mind that emerging markets now account for more than 50 percent of global GDP.

''What we will see is that for the first time in modern history, the U.S. economy will be pulled into recession by external forces," he told CBS MoneyWatch.