Nouriel Roubini: Don't Believe The Optimists | Hacker News Reader

Nouriel Roubini: Don't Believe The Optimists

forbes.com

14 pointsriffer7 comments

This is dated May 21, 2009.

Is this here because it was prescient and we're seeing exactly what was described in the article? Or is it here to show how wrong this guy was?

These aren't smart-mouthed internet questions. I really don't know where we stand now compared to this guy's prognostications of doom.

Any ideas?

Well at http://search.forbes.com/search/colArchiveSearch?author=nour... his output is basically still 'doom with occasional spots of mere awfulness'. Now that he has a reputation as a successful prognosticator, he seems reluctant to compromise it by expressing even the most guarded enthusiasm about anything: some weeks he just restates the financial headlines, and he doesn't deal in prescriptions about what we should do.

It's good that 'reform' is a current idea in politics, even if surrounded by much posturing, but articles like 'stop asking when the recession will end' smack of an unwillingness to commit to anything for fear of being wrong...which might explain why Roubini is so popular among the sort of people who anticipate some vague catastrophe in 2012.

The article was and still is mostly right:

http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_i...

U shaped recovery still seems more likely.

The article is right for the same reason that horoscopes seem right, because it doesn't really say anything. To my knowledge, nobody intelligent was seriously suggesting that a sharp recovery was likely. His article then discounts that relatively absurd possibility and then states his belief that the market will either be U-shaped, flat, or decline with a double-dip recession.

Given that at that point a serious depression was pretty much ruled out as well, he basically said that all possible responses were, in his opinion, possible... and then people read it and thought "wow, that horoscope was totally correct."

A more sober article than the title might suggest, but let's not fall so in love with our problems that become apathetic about pursuing solutions. There's nothing actionable here, even for the cautious.

I think reality is somewhere in between "V-shaped recovery" and his predictions of misery until the end of 2011.

He doesn't really predict "misery until the end of 2011", you can have a growing GDP and a rise of unemployment at the same time.

Unemployment is well known lagging indicator. Its rise until at least 2010 is something widely accepted by governments and economists.

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