Roubini on NPR

NPR: 'Dr. Doom' Economist On Prospects For Recovery

RAZ: You're known as Dr. Doom. You famously predicted our current financial turmoil or the one that we might be coming out of. Is Chairman Ben Bernanke correct? Is our economy leveling out?

Prof. ROUBINI: It's likely too optimistic, in my view. It's true that the economy is not in the same free fall that it had in the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year, but an analysis of the microeconomic data from the labor market to consumers to the housing market suggested that we're not yet at the end of this recession.

In my view, the recession's going to be over at the end of the year rather than now, and the recovery's going to be very anemic for a couple of years.

RAZ: But we are starting to pull out of it now.

Prof. ROUBINI: We are, in the sense that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and this recession may be closer to the end by the end of the year than it is right now.

RAZ: Are you surprised at how quickly the recovery seems to have started? I mean, you were talking about a dire global economic pandemic, you know, lasting through 2009. That doesn't seem likely anymore, right?

Prof. ROUBINI: Well, in my view, this recession is going to be the worst recession the U.S. has experienced in the last 60 years. Last year, the debate was among those in the consensus who said that this will be V-shaped, short contraction and rapid recovery lasting only eight months, and those like myself and others, who suggested it'll be more like a U, long, deep and protracted and lasting 24 months.

Now, we're already in the 20th month of this recession. Today there is an official data. It is the worst we have had by any standards already.