Tales from the Crypt

Nouriel Roubini - "...the worst U.S. recession in the past 50 years. It's the bursting of a huge leveraged-up credit bubble. There's no going back, and there is no bottom to it."

Bill Gross - "As 2008 nears its conclusion, we as an investor nation have been forced to face a new reality. Wall Street and Main Street are fearful that a recession may be replaced by a near depression."

Robert Shiller - "We don't currently have anywhere near the level of unemployment that we had in the 1930s, but otherwise there are many similarities between today's environment and the Great Depression, with things happening today that we haven't seen since then."

Sheila Bair - "We need to return to the culture of thrift that my mother and her generation learned the hard way through years of hardship and deprivation. Those are lessons learned that the current crisis is teaching us again."

Jim Rogers - "We are in a period of forced liquidation, which has happened only eight or nine times in the past 150 years. The fact that it's historic doesn't make it any more fun, of course."


John Train - "In the present environment I favor companies that can prosper in the lean years ahead. So, not Saks, but Wal-Mart; not Neiman Marcus, but Dollar General."

Meredith Whitney - "I think the overall economy will be worse than people expect. The biggest issue will be consumer spending. If 2008 was characterized by the market impacting the economy, then 2009 will be about the economy impacting the market. It's already started."

Wilbur Ross - "We are clearly in a serious recession, and more aggressive action is needed to turn things around."