The Ghouls are out in time for Halloween

Dr. Roubini is at it again, talking about collapse and recession and doom and gloom. The problem that I have with this is that talk of doom and gloom is one of the causal factors in recessions - if people THINK things are getting worse (or, if they're uncertain) then things will in fact get worse. Different from the Greenspan Effect (where people believe what they want to believe if Greenspan says it).

Professor Roubini gets richer the more he talks about collapse, so maybe this is his way of contrarian investing. After all, if you say the sky is falling enough it will eventually be true.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and even paranoid people have enemies. True dat.

Dr. Sunshine himself chimes in on recession

Dr. Nouriel Roubini, AKA Dr. Sunshine, weighs in on FDIC's announcement of the problem bank list.

[I refuse to let him take the name Dr. Doom -- that guy was in comic books, and doesn't look anything like Roubini.]

The good thing about saying stuff like this all the time is that if you do it enough nobody will pay attention to you until the Armageddon comes, and then you'll be right!

I agree with him on one point: it's going to have to get worse before it gets better, no kidding. Heck, there are still people in Washington who think that tax increases can help the economy. Really, I'm not kidding! They don't even know better than THAT.

Too Big to Bail Out

Nouriel Roubini is at it again - sowing seeds of doubt about the economy. He's convinced we're at a saddle-point for interventionist economics (that's what it sounds like): the institutions in trouble are too big to bail out, but too big to fail.

"Dr. Doom" doesn't disappoint.

I'd argue that we've spent all of our policy ammunition (most of it created from scratch) on bailing out the wrong industries, and union pensions, and trying to take over other industries that government really has no business taking over. But that's just me.

On the mortgage front:

The May numbers for defaults & delinquents are in, and guess what - they're up! More on this as time goes by. Linkies to press release, report from LPS and data.