A Roubini Primer

I've been talking about economist Dr. Nouriel Roubini for quite some time now. I've been reading his website since early last year, and as more and more of his dire predictions have come true I've been posting about the basics behind the economic disaster we're now facing. He's a former Clinton-era Treasury Department economist turned academic who warned the world about the US housing depression back in 2004. Making a career of studying the characteristics of collapsing emerging markets, he noticed the same warning signs in the US economy.

He presented his findings to the economic world in early 2006. He was ignored then.

He is no longer ignored now. Digby has an excellent post on Roubini and his history and his take on the bailout...and how the Bushies have ignored him totally.

If that's true, then this plan will end up being an economic Iraq. And just as people who said "No Blood For Oil" were told to sit down and shut up or risk having the boogeyman use drone planes to create mushroom clouds in shopping malls, those who are saying today, "no bail out for the rich" are similarly being told that the global economy will suffer a nuclear meltdown if the government doesn't spend this enormous amount of money. And just like then, this all happened in the few short weeks between September and November in a major election year.

We don't know if there are financial WMDs out there. Certainly, enough people think there are that you can't dismiss it. But when the experts who have been predicting the WMD say that the plan to rid the world of them is fatally flawed and won't cure the problem, then they should be listened to. And unfortunately, that won't happen. We're listening to the usual suspects who have always been wrong about everything. And the results are likely to as good as they always are.

I'm not expert in these matters, but the more I read, the less I'm sanguine that this huge giveaway is designed to do anything but constrict the next president from being able to successfully intervene in the recession. The money will be gone, the problem will be growing and there will be fewer tools available to adequately stimulate the economy.

Read the whole thing.