The Weakest Recovery Ever

And illusory.

Recent economic gains have been primarily illusory, driven by weather-related factors that are not sustainable, economist David Rosenberg told CNBC.

In fact, the strategist at Gluskin Sheff in Toronto said in an interview, the recovery has been extremely weak by historical standards and would be even more so if not for all of the deficit spending and money printing in Washington.

"Is it growing? How could it not be growing," Rosenberg said. "We've got four years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits, we have a Fed balance sheet that's tripled in size, zero policy rates for three years. Of course you're going to get some growth."

But it's the type of growth that causes concern.

"If you want to take a big-picture perspective, this goes down as the weakest economic recovery ever, despite all the ramp up in government stimulus, and that really tells you something," he said.