Roubini 'I told you so' watch

NYU economist Nouriel "Dr. Doom" Roubini was featured on National Public Radio this morning, in a Tom Gjelten story about whether globalization will help ease the financial crisis:

Six months ago, it appeared that the subprime mortgage crisis meant the United States was in for a period of economic distress. But at least one economist — Nouriel Roubini — was already on the record predicting that the crisis would be international. His article "The Coming Financial Pandemic" was on the cover of the March issue of Foreign Policy magazine.

Speaking at Columbia University this week, Roubini said the economic data eventually showed he was right. "The numbers from the second quarter of this year," he said, "suggested that not only the U.S. was entering a recession but also the U.K. was entering a recession, the rest of Europe was entering a recession, Japan was beginning to have an economic contraction, Canada was starting to have a recession."

Since then, it has only gotten worse, said Roubini, chairman of RGE Monitor, a strategic analysis firm.

"People usually say, when the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches the cold," he noted. "This time around, the U.S. is not just going to sneeze; it's going to have a severe case of pneumonia, or something more severe than that, and therefore the transmission to other countries is going to be also very, very severe."

I've made Roubini's cover story free in case any NPR listeners or Passport readers out there want to read it. I'm not sure "enjoy" is the proper term to use here, so I'll just say that I hope you find it informative.