Saturday, January 24, 2009

He told us so

Emma Brockes
The Guardian, Saturday 24 January 2009

They called him Dr Doom. He was the economist who three years ago predicted in detail a collapse of the housing market and worldwide recession - and was roundly ridiculed for it. Emma Brockes asks Nouriel Roubini what he foresees now

The New York offices of Nouriel Roubini's consultancy firm are as spare as the times: a desk, a phone, some blank Post-it notes and 134 pages printed from Wikipedia listing every bank in the world, all a superhero in the new austerity needs. Three years ago, Roubini, an economist, was dismissed as a doom-monger for identifying massive vulnerability in the US banking system and predicting its collapse. Now he's a guru, attracting the interest not only of governments and bank chiefs, but of New York's premiere gossip website, which has wound him up so spectacularly and to a pitch of such fury that - along with "Where did all the money go?" and "Is now a good time to buy a house?" - the question one most wants to ask of Roubini is exactly what does happen at his loft parties in downtown Manhattan?

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