Bad tidings

200 posts later, I’m still agreeing with Nouriel “Dr. Doom” Roubini, whose prognosis for the U.S. economy in 2012 is not good.

The best I can say, and this is better than it sounds, is that recovery has a way of taking us economists by surprise. The 1991 and 2001 recessions look short and shallow in hindsight, but they seemed pretty bleak at the time, like classic “liquidity traps” where monetary policy was powerless to prime the pump. And the economy in 1980-82 seemed to be in absolute shambles. Most of the business cycle literature I’ve read deals with the causes of recessions and depressions, but I’m told there’s a substantial literature on the forces of recovery. I plan to acquaint myself with it this year, and to blog a fair bit about where recovery — especially a genuine, non-bubble-driven recovery — might come from.

Tags: 2012, nouriel roubini, recovery