Roubini predicts gloomy 2012

Trust Nouriel Roubini to zig when others zag. At a time when many financial pundits are predicting, and certainly hoping for, improved macroeconomic conditions in 2012, along comes the noted economist and paints by far the most cheerless picture of the world economy.

In typical Roubini fashion, he tells it like it is in this FT report. No glossing over. No mucking about. Forget better economic data and higher growth, the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Here’s the essence of Roubini’s forecast for the world’s biggest economies: “By 2013 at the latest, but possibly already in 2012, a perfect storm of a double-dip recession in the US, a disorderly scenario in the Eurozone and a hard landing in China could materialize.”

And unless policymakers in the U.S., China, and Eurozone stop “kicking the can down the road” and bite the bullet of short-term pain and political costs of unpopular decisions, a better economic climate will continue to be more a chimera than anything else, he says.