'Is Nouriel Roubini a False Prophet?'

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/?p=1321

Psychics and prophets have been in business since that other oldest profession. Like the more commonly referred to oldest profession, the secret to success for psychics and prophets is to turn many tricks.

As a lawyer by training, I have been rigorously conditioned to see the logical techniques employed in everything I hear and read the same way Neo from The Matrix sees the 1’s and 0’s underlying superficial reality. So, I am concerned when I watch self-proclaimed psychics and prophets use the equivalent of logical black magic to seduce their prey.

Wall Street has a laundry list of such charlatans. They tend to capture the spotlight during the heat of emotional peaks in the markets because emotion and reason tend to maintain an inverse relationship. During times of crisis we need something, sometimes anything, to reduce our pain and restore order to an uncomfortable new chaos.

During the height of the most recent economic crisis, the media offered the center-stage spotlight to NYU Economics Professor Nouriel Roubini to comfort us with his soma. At the peak of the crash, Roubini was as ubiquitous as Coca-Cola and cellphones. He was the go-to guy because his PR team branded him as “The Prophet of Doom.” A perfect fit when you need someone to call at an overwhelmingly bullish place like Wall Street.

. . .

Um, dude needs to re-read Brave New World. What Roubini was dispensing was the opposite of soma.