Feb 13, 2009 02:32 PM
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Wed Feb 10
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Doom-saying party-animal economist Nouriel Roubini has an op-ed in this Sunday's Washington Post and he's contributing to Forbes—when will he start live-Tweeting the apocalyptic economic collapse he's still predicting?
Amusingly, the business school economics professor is now the official national spokesman for we have to nationalize all the banks now. All of them—all four of America's remaining banks!—are insolvent, he insists, and unless the government seizes control of them we're basically fucked.
Roubini is basically responding to Tim Geithner's every move with a lengthy piece in a major publication on how dumb Geithner's plans are. Geithner used to be his boss, right? Dr. Doom is having fun!
The Forbes piece on nationalizing all the banks is for expert readers. For the amateur pessimism porn enthusiast, try Roubini and fellow Stern prof Matthew Richardson's Post Sunday Outlook piece.
Here is why the plan won't work: because if it does work all it will do is prove that Citi and BoA and JPMorgan and Wells Fargo are all insolvent.
But unfortunately, the plan won't solve our financial woes, because it assumes that the system is solvent. If implemented fairly for current taxpayers (i.e., no more freebies in the form of underpriced equity, preferred shares, loan guarantees or insurance on assets), it will just confirm how bad things really are.
And then, hey, all our banks are broke! Nice work Geithner! We know Roubini is "quite a cheerful person with a few close friends and eclectic group of friends" but he is really bringing us all down. Look at the downer note he ends on:
Basically, we're all Swedes now. We have used all our bullets, and the boogeyman is still coming. Let's pull out the bazooka and be done with it.
Oh, great, now we're Swedish. Brush up on your Strindberg and Bergman! There's your great depression, jeez.
Send an email to Alex Pareene, the author of this post, at alexp@gawker.com.
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