Posted on 08/19/2008 12:33:51 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
An economic Cassandra whose predictions are coming true
By Stephen Mihm
Saturday, August 16, 2008
NEW YORK: On Sept. 7, 2006, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund and announced that a crisis was brewing. In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.
He laid out a bleak sequence of events: homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt. These developments, he said, could cripple or destroy hedge funds, investment banks and other major financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
As Roubini stepped down from the lectern after his talk, the moderator of the event said, "I think perhaps we will need a stiff drink after that." People laughed - and not without reason. At the time, unemployment and inflation remained low, and the economy, while weak, was still growing, despite rising oil prices and a softening housing market.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Either one of those wouldn’t be so bad if the word “think” were inserted somewhere in there.
Right, but they don’t own us, either.
You are saying one lone economist can by himself, solely from whole cloth, make a depression a self-fulfilling prophesy with his meager words alone? You are TOO funny!
So while we don't feel the presence of Japan in our everyday lives, they are a major factor in the U.S. economy.
I have been laughing at myself all day!!!
I have been laughing at myself all day!!!
Don’t worry. I believe you are laughing WITH yourself and not AT yourself.
Japan is not without its own economic and social issues is the point I was making, and I would rather have ours than theirs.
That’s true and I agree with you.
“Funny how things turned out.”
Such as Toyota passing GM in worldwide auto sales.
The US becoming the world’s largest debtor nation in contrast to Japan’s creditor status.
Japan’s continued domination of consumer electronics and other targeted industries.
It’s funny.
“Misery indexes are more pap spewed out by the leftist press, whose agenda is to destroy the free market and give us collectivism.”
No prize for you. The Misery Index was a Republican club created for the purpose of battering Jimmy Carter. It was the sum of the unemployment rate plus the inflation rate.
I stand by my previous statement.
I would rather be a citizen in the USA under our economy than a Japanese citizen under theirs.
Cars and consumer electronics are not the only things that drive an economy, and doing well in those does not mean the be-all and end-all of the well-being of an economy.
But I’m sure you know that.
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