Nouriel Roubini’s Predictions for 2012

Nouriel Roubini’s predictions for 2012 are as dire as the can be. Nouriel Roubini, a.k.a. Dr. Doom, spoke to Bloomberg TV and said “we’re going into a recession based on my numbers”. Here is an excerpt from Bloomberg TV interview:

“We’ve reached a stall speed in the economy, not just in the U.S., but in the euro zone and the UK. We see probably a 60% probability of recession next year and unfortunately we’re running out of policy tools. Every country is doing fiscal austerity and there will be a fiscal drag. The ability to backstop the banks is now impossible because of political constraints and sovereigns cannot bail out their own distressed banks because they are distressed themselves.”

“Everyone would like a weaker currency, but if the currency’s weaker, another has to be stronger. There’ll be more monetary easing and quantitative easing done by the Fed and other central banks, but the credit channel is broken. The velocity has collapsed and all the extra money is going into reserves. There was asset deflation, but it occurred because the economic numbers in August started to improve even before QE was done. This time around the macro data is negative, so yes, the market is rallying on the expectation of QE3, but I think it will be a short-lived rally. The macro data, ISM, employment, and housing numbers will come out worse and worse, the market will start to correct again. We’re going to a recession, we are at stall speed and we are running out of policy bullets.”

Nouriel Roubini’s popularity increased 5 fold between July 17th and August 7th. This clearly explains the huge decline in the market. People are worried about the economy and they are searching for Nouriel Roubini’s predictions on the internet. Roubini’s popularity has been declining since August 7th though. On August 21st it was only 2.2 times its level on July 17th. This means people are still worried and the stock market will keep increasing over the next week.