Quoting Will

Interested in your take on Roubini's summation in Forbes...

I am not such a fan of Roubini. He and Krugman have predicted 9 out of the last 1 recessions.

You've linked to the Google Reader subscription to Will Wilkinson's blog. This is the link you meant to provide.

Wilkinson is quite right about the green economy. People have pretty much missed how irrationally high demand for oil and gasoline caused risk to go up and initiated the meltdown. Both debt to income and debt to assets have been increasing for half a century. But the last few years, as oil and gas went up, expenses went up, and incomes stayed flat or fell. POP!

Thing is there's still the consumer debt problem lurking and consumers don't have the good information they will need to respond well to higher gas prices, even if it is done slowly at an expected rate.

His blog begins with:
"-Government attempts to do X would work a lot better if people who were ideologically opposed to the government’s doing X would just shut up and go away."

Now lets replace the word "Government" with the words "free-market". And the word "people" with the word "politicians".

"Free-market attempts to do X would work a lot better if politicians who were ideologically opposed to the free-market's doing X would just shut up and go away."

I wonder how those 25 year olds in question would respond to that.

Otherwise, couldn't the "Green economy" be able to compete with the "non green economy" in five years? I wouldn't call it impossible, there may be a future in it.

The democrats signed on the bailout very fast and easily, makes me think that they will extract quite a payment for the same. After all if you just bailed out the rich how can you hold back from any program that looks like it might help the poor?

"A lot of readers have noticed my less-than-sunny outlook and subtly suggested that I must be off my meds."

Yes, the economy sucks and will probably suck for the next ten years. That's OK, take a Prosac!

I'm with Arnold Kling: There is no rosy near-term future for our economy, so some gloom is appropriate. I'm approaching retirement, and my net worth fell by 27%. That put a big, polarized shield between me and the sun. The government's antics darkened the shield, and Obama's election made it nearly opaque.