Hooray for Mr Roubini, I share his sentiments and feel that the 18 month estimate may be a tad optimistic.
Let's work on a "X" factor assumption. At the moment Faye is heading along the coast of Cuba as a tropical storm. The initial models had it tracking East of Fl and it is now proving this wrong. Current is that it will track along the Fl. West coast. Let's assume that this storm goes into the Gulf and meanders, gaining strength and heads straight up into Mobile bay as a cat. 5 and does a ton of damage to the oil and nat. gas industry. How long before oil is at 150 a barrel? How long before nat gas is at 12. The economy is strained. The consumer is near out of money. Winter is coming.
All it will take is a scenario like the above and Mr. Roubini will prove correct.
We are not out of the woods on this possibility until late Oct.

The problem with strictly academic economists is that they do not have micro economic insights to give us. How hard was it to see rising cost of materials even two years ago in the manufacturing sector. Yes I agree with him that we have several other debt crisis to face, but just because he got it right once, does not mean he will get it right again. Economic prediction is about as sure as predicting the return of Elvis. Even Greenspan got it wrong. I think we are heading into this election with a need to be concerned that the next president will think his advisors smart enough to expand government interference in the market place. But now for a bit of humor. You have to go see who is popping up at http://www.bop-o-rama.com. Is she really painting the White House PINK? A final thought for all this pessimism from a great statesman, Winston Churchill-- "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. "

In 1979 the day after graduating from high school I went to work for Maryland National Bank. In short order both the price of gas and the prime rate began to ascend. The gray suits were worried. They couldn't see any way out. Paul Volker, then Fed Chairman, was demonized. In 1987 I was sitting in a college economics class when the great market meltdown occurred. The professor, I'll withhold his name so as not to embarrass him, went crazy writing never ending equations that foretold of the death of the American economy. This fellow, Greenspan, lacked the experience to save us from ourselves. In both instances if I had simply walked from the room, went to work at McDonalds and poured all of my money into a functional large cap fund, my networth would have been far larger, well strike that comment, but I would've done very well and managed to live comfortably.

Here is my question: How long has Professor Roubini been preaching gloom and doom? He's like these people who only invest in gold and then occasionally they get some movement and then run back into the woodwork when gold tumbles again. Check the price of gold over the last 27 years. Hell, check out the price of gold over the past six months.

My friends this too shall pass. Look at the Russians. They had it all figured out until they didn't. They couldn't help themselves this past couple of weeks by beating Georgia half to death. Now everything that they do will be viewed with suspicion. Free Khodorovsky! The Olympics are nice but the image that they project is a complete sham. India is one of the most stratified countries in the world with a caste system that locks you in place for life. Make no mistake, Bush has screwed up our country, snatching deficits out of the jaws of surpluses, but all over America Adam Smith's free hand is at work.

Public opinion rides on the back of the marketplace. People seek out opinions that confirm their worldview. These same people couldn't buy tech stocks fast enough and only paid attention to analysts (Blodgett) that confirmed what they wanted to believe. Once again we're back to 1980 and 1987.

Beltway Greg

Dear beltway:

I don't know how long he has been at it either.
I also don't linke being this pessimistic. However, the present is unique and cannot be compared to anything passed. In 1857 Russian Wheat rotted in U.S. Warehouses and the so called "panic" was felt as far away as Washington, territory, not D.C.
The economy was somewhat worldwide, even back than. Today it is a whole new ball game. I feel the way I do because of cycles that I cannot explain and I really hope that it falls into the "mistake" category, but it has been running like clockwork since 1740 and that gives me bad vibes. It also points to a natural event to really screw up the works.
This is not hocus-pocus or throwing the bones, its a history book. I don't like it either, but it appears to be right on cue.

Bill,

You are too pessimistic, but instead of giving a long winded speach about the economy and the woes to come I will simply remind anyone interested in what Roubini thinks to remember the old adage "those that can do, and those that can't teach."

Furthermore the number one invester of the last 60 years, "my pal Warren" has stated the worst is over and started investing tens of billions of dollars, currently putting his money where his mouth is, to back up his opinion.

Who do you want to believe Roubini or Buffett?

A lot will depend on how much the government intervenes with the corrective process.

Back in the late 1920's and 30's, *both* Hoover and FDR did everything possible to prevent the downturn...As a result, they turned what would've been a decent sized recession into a long and drawn out depression.

In modern times, if the government were to let the market correct the malinvestments created by fractional-reserve banking, perhaps the recession won't be severe.

Unfortunately, if the bailouts and interventions *thus far* are any indication, Mr. Roubini may be a bit optimistic about his 18 month prediction.

Negetive lol,,all america has to do is remove the crude off the commodities market and sit back and watch america grow again,,now you dont have to be a genius to figure that out,,so way is american crude oil on the commodities?hmm ronald reagen gave i to the big oil guys and had it placed on the commodites,,if ronny was alive he would agree that that was a BIG MISTAKE,,remove american crude off the commodities and sit back and watch america grow

So you think the Times is just doing this to sell newspapers? Gee, I wonder what other reason the liberals at the Times might have for wanting to convince us that the Bush Administration has led us to the brink of Depression?

well when the government and wall street runs on enron stats ? like unemployment ? if you only count people who made apps in the last 90 day'S ! they do not count people who collect beyond that ? or were denied? or exhausted their benifits ? what a stat! OR G.W. AND THE REPUBLICANS WHIO WILL SPEND 6.2.TRILLION $ FOR TWO WARS AND CALL THAT FREEDOM ? BUT TRY TO SPEND JUST HALF THAT $ ON OLD PEOPLE AND KIDS AND THE SAME REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVES CALL THAT SOCILISM !! GO FIGURE!

oh and lets not forget the one trillion $ wall street has lost ! does anyone remember the welfare bailout of wall street? bear stearns , fannie, freddie, indymac ? the list of bankrupt banks is huge ! and so are the bailouts ? why? let the free market rule? ANOTHER THING WHEN WALL STREET BANKS LOSE $ THEY CALL THAT A WRITEDOWN ? AND WHEN THE MARKET GOES FROM 14,600 TO 11,400 THEY CALL THAT A CORRECTION ? lol lol ITs A LOSS IDIOTS ! JUST MORE B.S.ENRON STATS FROM WALL STREET!NICE CODE WORDS lol lol...

To many pessimist in this country. America is not in recession. The economy is not great but these will pass & with american engenuity we will be back on top again.

Almost the entire human species ALL suffers from the same exact problem...we ALL hate to admit that someone else knows more than we do or that someone else could be correct while we are wrong.
There will be no recovery...not in 12 months or in 12 years. We as a nation and We as a sociely have alreaady spent away the wealth of the USA and replaced it with debt and more debt. There is nothing remaininig but DEBTS. The future is gone because we have alread spent it in the past.

Keep predicting doom and gloom and eventually, you might be right! What did warren Buffet say after the *.com meltdown (and there were several other negatives, at that time, as well)? Warren Buffet said that it was no good to invest in stocks and that we were heading for a massive recession... On the contrary, Louis Ruekheiser told us to go ahead and invest, after the *.com bubble. Obviously, Louis Ruekheiser was correct... There was still, fairly decent growth in equities, after 2000.