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January 21, 2008
NYT: Misplaced Anti-Bear Snark
Somewhat snarky piece in the NY Times Dealbook late today pointing to the speaking presence of two well-known market bears at Davos this year. Both Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach and my friend Nouriel Roubini are there, which the NYT can't seemingly help offering (via unsourced snark) is another sign that if you are bearish long enough you will eventually be right.
While I admittedly skew bullish, I think that's giving both Roach and Roubini short shrift. They're both thoughtful guys, and while both were early on this recession call, there was much bears could learn from their arguments and data, especially from Roubini's housing/credit take. Dismissing it so blithely strikes me as further sign we have more to fall.
Roubini, always marshaling the latest statistics on his blog in the name of recession, stagflation, or some combination thereof, has argued for some time that the United States is headed for a recession.
Roach, speaking mostly through the press, which he has consistently furnished with lively quotations, has consistently warned about the dangers posed by American consumers, who drew on rising home prices to finance a buying spree with little precedent in economic history.
Of course, as other economists are inclined to point out, if you predict disaster for long enough, the odds are that it will eventually come to pass, and make you look like a seer. And get you some attention in Davos.
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"Roach...has consistently warned about the dangers posed by American consumers, who drew on rising home prices to finance a buying spree with little precedent in economic history."
(1) By taking out the other 'has consistently," I demonstrate that I am a better editor than the person at the NYT.
2) If you only present Roach's actual statement, as above, it is clearly accurate and has been for some time in this no-real-wages, no-job-growth "recovery."
But to do so would reveal integrity, and to note that Paul Volcker has been saying similar since at least 2005 would be an admission that the NYT just wasn't paying attention. (Note to the NYT: if your writer believes that "marshaling the latest statistics" is a bad thing, then they probably shouldn't be writing about economics.
Carter Dougherty has become a name to remember--for all the wrong reasons.