PIMCO's Bill Gross: U.S. 'Approaching Recession'

So much for that economic recovery.

The U.S. economy is "approaching recession when measured by employment, retail sales, investment, and corporate profits," said Bill Gross, co-founder of PIMCO, on Twitter Monday. Gross manages PIMCO's Total Return Fund, the world's largest mutual fund (h/t Bloomberg).

Gross told Bloomberg last week that he thinks the U.S. economy will grow an average of 1.5 percent per year on average over the next decade, according to a separate Bloomberg report.

The bearish predictions landed Monday, shortly after the Commerce Department released data showing that U.S. retail sales declined 0.5 percent in June, indicating that Americans are holding back on spending. American workers simply do not have much money to spend these days, since their pay raises are roughly in line with inflation.

Federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke offered a dire assessment of the economy during Congressional testimony Tuesday, still he didn't announce plans for further stimulus, though he said the Fed would take action if growth doesn't pick up.

Gross' pessimistic forecast echoes those of Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at NYU who has earned the nickname "Dr. Doom" for his bearish but often prescient predictions. Roubini wrote on Twitter yesterday that the U.S. economy is "at stall speed" and that it could grow at an annualized rate of "well below 1 percent" between July and September.

Most economists may not be predicting that the U.S. is approaching recession, but they aren't expecting robust growth either. The U.S. economy will grow slightly more than 2 percent per year through 2014, according to a recent Bloomberg survey of 72 economists.