[Video] It's Roubini Time

Or it could be his market calls (S&P to 600!) which is not the place an economist should be sticking his nose.  I'm still a fan and think he is one of the few voices on infotainment financial TeeVee railing against

1. Those who live with head under sand
2. Those attached to the Matrix
3. Those who drink Kool Aid, or have a running IV attached to arm
4. Those who flutter in a land of mystical unicorns and mermaids (and butterflies)

If you are not familiar with the man, I have a bevy of Roubini posts - you can click on the tag at the bottom of the post with his name - since he was one of the few guys I could find in the mainstream in 2007 and 2008 whose views actually closely matched mine.   For one of the best views of the 'go forward' period I'd suggest readers review [Feb 12, 2010: (Video) Nouriel Roubini Crushes Kool Aid Drinkers]

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For his latest views, here are some videos from this morning

[Video unavailable, I'll edit once it is fixed on CNBC website] - see commentary at end of this piece for written version

Later in the show, battling Rich Bernstein -  7 minutes

European governments face the quandary of being unable to afford to bail out banks that are still considered too big to fail, while the global economy is heading for a slowdown in the second half of the year, economist Nouriel Roubini of RGE Monitor told CNBC Tuesday.  Governments are running out of ways to counter a massive slowdown or the risk of a double-dip recession, Roubini said.

A year ago we had all these policy bullets, he said. We could push down rates to zero, we had (quantitative easing), we could do a budget deficit of 10 percent of GDP (or) backstop the financial system.

Banks at this point are too big to fail, but also too big to be bailed, especially in Europe where the sovereigns are in trouble and therefore the ability to backstop the financial system is not there, he said.  (Mark's note: that's why you create a fake stress test that EVERYONE passes, U.S style - Geithner told them to do it, and they are doing it.  Presto magic... everyone is fine! Now buy some stock,)

Roubini said he was unimpressed with the June US employment report, pointing out that the jobless rate fell because of a large number of discouraged workers leaving the labor force, and also noted recently weak data on manufacturing, retail sales and housing.

Everything signals a slowdown of the US, a slowdown of Europe, a slowdown of Japan and a slowdown of China, he said.

The US economy will grow at a rate of 1.5 percent, while the euro zone and Japan will see growth close to 0 and China will grow at a rate of 7 percent, he said.

Dr. Dismal?

While not predicting a double-dip recession, with economic growth at a rate of 1.5 percent everything becomes worse, Roubini said.

The unemployment rate goes higher, the budget deficit is larger, home prices don't stabilize, but fall further and trade tensions with China will be bigger, he said.

You don't need to have a double dip recession to have a situation that is dismal, he said.

The economy was strong in the first half because of the stimulus and inventory build-up, but once these things become a drag on the economy, balance-sheet constraints imply deleveraging by houses, deleveraging by the financial system and deleveraging by governments, Roubini said.

We're going to have a global slowdown, he said.