He told us so

Emma Brockes
The Guardian, Saturday 24 January 2009

They called him Dr Doom. He was the economist who three years ago predicted in detail a collapse of the housing market and worldwide recession - and was roundly ridiculed for it. Emma Brockes asks Nouriel Roubini what he foresees now

The New York offices of Nouriel Roubini's consultancy firm are as spare as the times: a desk, a phone, some blank Post-it notes and 134 pages printed from Wikipedia listing every bank in the world, all a superhero in the new austerity needs. Three years ago, Roubini, an economist, was dismissed as a doom-monger for identifying massive vulnerability in the US banking system and predicting its collapse. Now he's a guru, attracting the interest not only of governments and bank chiefs, but of New York's premiere gossip website, which has wound him up so spectacularly and to a pitch of such fury that - along with "Where did all the money go?" and "Is now a good time to buy a house?" - the question one most wants to ask of Roubini is exactly what does happen at his loft parties in downtown Manhattan?