WASHINGTON – New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini – otherwise known as “Dr. Doom” – left his party-boy reputation behind for a few hours yesterday while he brought his gloomy economic forecast to Congress.
“This is clearly the worst financial crisis that the US and other advanced economies have experienced since the Great Depression,” said the prestigious economist by day, playboy by night.
Roubini is almost as acclaimed for his late-night parties and Facebook shenanigans with buxom young women as he is for his economic accomplishments.
He testified before a panel of congressional investigators led by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY).
One of the first economists to predict that the country was headed toward trouble, Roubini told the committee that Congress should waste no time waiting for the government to officially classify the national financial woes as a recession.
“When it walks and quacks like a recession duck, then it is a recession,” Roubini said.
The NYU academic said a recession could last for 18 to 24 months, and if spending tanks in the private sector, the government will need to change its economic strategy from offering tax incentives to providing a safety net for the poor.
“Six months from now, everything we’ve done to backstop the banks is going to be undone by a collapse in aggregate demand. It’s going to imply credit losses, nonperforming loans, delinquencies, mortgage defaults, foreclosures and defaults by corporations,” Roubini said.
He told the lawmakers that a second stimulus bill is in order, and to work, it would have to cost $300 billion to $400 billion.
“Action has to be taken now, soon enough and in a large amount. That’s going to be the only way we’re going to make sure that this recession will be shorter and more shallow,” Roubini said.
“Otherwise, it’s going to be very, very severe.”
Despite Roubini’s dark predictions for the nation’s economic system, life still looks pretty good for the jet-setting financial expert.
Countless photos on his Facebook page show that 49-year-old Harvard Ph.D. has a seemingly unlimited supply of young, female friends, and plenty of party snapshots prove that the professional naysayer is not sulking at home.
In a recent letter to Gawker.com, Roubini said he’s happy with his image.
“So I live life to its fullest. To paraphrase Seinfeld: Anything wrong with that?” he wrote.