Roubini sees weeds amid green shoots

[Joanne98]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. economy will not recover until the end of this year, and even then growth will remain meek and vulnerable to higher interest rates and commodity prices, economist Nouriel Roubini said on Tuesday.

Roubini, who rose to prominence for predicting the global credit crisis, tore down the "green shoots" theory that a rebound is imminent, saying there was a significant risk of a "double-dip" recession where the economy expands slightly only to begin contracting again.

"In addition to green shoots there are also yellow weeds," he told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York.

He pointed to the growing divergence between business sentiment surveys, which have been improving in recent months, and industrial production, which is down sharply and receded another 1.1 percent in May.

Roubini, the head of economics research firm RGE Global Monitor, said the U.S. jobless rate, already at a 26-year high of 9.4 percent, would reach 11 percent before it begins to ease. He added that he saw few engines for growth given that U.S. consumers are tapped out

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE55F4ET20090616

[Warpy]

1. Those green shoots need water and fertilizer

if they are to grow. They won't just take care of themselves, not in this climate.

Unless regulations are enacted to prevent bubbles, taxes rewritten to reflect reality and a jobs program started to ease the suffering at the bottom while providing new demand for goods and services, those green shoots will die of neglect.

Pouring money in at the top can do only so much. No amount of bailout money will resuscitate a business that has no customers.

[femrap]

2. We aren't going to recover.

The Decline of the American Empire has started and it will continue with the devaluation of the dollar.

WASF. It's not going to get better unless you start to think about getting off the grid and raising your own food. Solar panels and geothermal go along with that.

[GoesTo11]

3. Roubini expresses unbridled optimism in economy and financial markets

Headline from Bizarro Reuters.

His comments in the OP are sensible, but has anyone ever heard him be optimistic?