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In the period before the global economic crisis of 2008, Nouriel Roubini was tagged "Dr. Doom" by many media outlets. The label was often dismissive, but it became more of a badge of honor after crisis hit. Roubini has remained vigilant about the vulnerability of the financial markets. His concern now is a global depression. In order to avoid depression, Roubini says there must me a multi-national approach. While austerity measures in many countries are necessary, he argues that other nations must postpone austerity in order to inject stimulus into the global economy. Writing at Project Syndicate , Roubini outlines several other steps: Second, while monetary policy has limited impact when the problems are excessive debt and insolvency rather than illiquidity, credit easing, rather than just quantitative easing, can be helpful. The European Central Bank should reverse its mistaken decision to hike interest rates. More monetary and credit easing is also required for the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, and the Swiss National Bank. Inflation will soon be the last problem that central banks will fear, as renewed slack in goods, labor, real estate, and commodity markets feeds disinflationary pressures. Third, to restore credit growth, eurozone banks and banking systems that are under-capitalized should be strengthened with public financing in a European Union-wide program. To avoid an additional credit crunch as banks deleverage, banks should be given some short-term forbearance on capital and liquidity requirements. Also, since the US and EU financial systems remain unlikely to provide credit to small and medium-size enterprises, direct government provision of credit to solvent but illiquid SMEs is essential. Fourth, large-scale liquidity provision for solvent governments is necessary to avoid a spike in spreads and loss of market access that would turn illiquidity into insolvency. Even with policy changes, it takes time for governments to restore their credibility. Until then, markets will keep pressure on sovereign spreads, making a self-fulfilling crisis likely. Agree or disagree with Roubini, by proposing specific steps, he does allow for a meaningful discussion. Two big questions raised by his proposals are 1) is a coordinated global policy possible in today's political climate, and 2) if so, then how might it come about? Read How to Prevent a Depression here .

Nouriel Roubini commends Congress for some of its recent reform efforts, but he does not believe that the federal government has done enough to avert financial crises in the future. The global economy remains highly vulnerable, and Roubini argues that not only the US government, but also the IMF, can do more to police systemic risk. He discussed his concerns about coming crises, during this Tea with The Economist :

There is no shortage of strong writing on unemployment figures these days. Or, for that matter, projections. Nouriel Roubini , for one, is projecting things to get worse: Based on my best judgment, it is most likely that the unemployment rate will peak close to 11% and will remain at a very high level for two years or more. The weakness in labor markets and the sharp fall in labor income ensure a weak recovery of private consumption and an anemic recovery of the economy, and increases the risk of a double dip recession. As a result of these terribly weak labor markets, we can expect weak recovery of consumption and economic growth; larger budget deficits; greater delinquencies in residential and commercial real estate and greater fall in home and commercial real estate prices; greater losses for banks and financial institutions on residential and commercial real estate mortgages, and in credit cards, auto loans and student loans and thus a greater rate of failures of banks; and greater protectionist pressures. The damage will be extensive and severe unless bold policy action is undertaken now. But Daniel Gross has an interesting take at his Moneybox column for Slate . He agrees that "before things get better, they have to get worse more slowly." But he looked at the third quarter productivity numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and saw some hope: In the third quarter, productivity —econospeak for companies doing more work with the same amount of labor—rose at a 9.5 percent annual rate. We've just witnessed the fastest two-quarter productivity surge since the first year of the Kennedy administration. Economists can read these omens the way Roman priests read chicken entrails. And here's one of their explanations: Just as investors and businesspeople don't believe things could ever go wrong at the peak of the boom, they have difficulty imagining things can get better at the trough of the bust. And so they respond to rising demand not by hiring new employees but by coaxing existing employees to work harder. But just as hamsters can run only so fast on their treadmills, there are limits to productivity growth. "If you look at economies over many centuries, you can't grow productivity for 7 or 9 percent for more than two or three quarters," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at New York-based Economic Cycle Research Institute , whose leading employment indicators are looking up. "At a certain point, people will start to collapse at work." Should the economy expand in the fourth quarter at the same 3.5 percent annual rate it did in the third quarter—as it shows every sign of doing—companies won't have any choice but to hire, says Michael Darda , chief economist at MKM Partners. "There's an outside chance we could see job growth by the end of the year." Read Coming Soon: Jobs! here .

Nouriel Roubini is more concerned about looming inflation than Alan Blinder (see previous post). The NYU economics professor and chair of RGE Monitor sees a looming "W-shaped"--or "double-dip"--recession for both Europe and the United States. And today, speaking to CNBC from the Paris Conference on Long-Term Vlue and Economic Stability , Roubini warned of the effect of rising oil prices.