Bears still growl at the Sanctum Sanctorum of the policy elites

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Economics Last updated: September 4th, 2009
From Cernobbio

If arch-bear Nouriel Roubini has really thrown in the towel on our Great Contraction – as often claimed – this was not obvious here on the shores of Lake Como in Italy.

Speaking at the Ambrosetti Workshop – a sort of Davos/Bliderberg for food-loving policy elites – he said the best we can hope for is a long-hard slog for two or three years, with a rising risk of a double dip into “W-shaped” recession.

The poll of the 200 or so participants at the Villa D’Este (an ultra-posh hotel on the lake: Telegraph hacks stay up the hill in cheaper digs) found that the great majority expect the crisis to end in the second half of 2010. This is much later than the implicit assumption of the markets, which expect rate rises by January.

I grimly voted for option five: that the crisis would continue to worsen, by which I mean that the legerdemain of shifting losses onto the shoulders of the taxpayer – pushing the public debts to 100pc of GDP on both sides of the Atlantic, and 200pc in Japan – conjures away nothing. It merely stretches out the damage, and alters its shape.

/Worth reading Ambrose E-P's latest doom (& he's a right-winger) + comments... http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100000815/bears-still-growl-at-the-sanctum-santorum-of-the-policy-elites/