Roubini : The Tensions in the Middle East could reach a boil by 2013 | NOURIEL ROUBINI BLOG

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Roubini : The Tensions in the Middle East could reach a boil by 2013

Nouriel Roubini :...Finally, long-simmering tensions in the Middle East between Israel and the US on one side and Iran on the other on the issue of nuclear proliferation could reach a boil by 2013. The current negotiations are likely to fail, and even tightened sanctions may not stop Iran from trying to build nuclear weapons. With the US and Israel unwilling to accept containment of a nuclear Iran by deterrence, a military confrontation in 2013 would lead to a massive oil price spike and global recession. These risks are already exacerbating the economic slowdown: equity markets are falling everywhere, leading to negative wealth effects on consumption and capital spending. Borrowing costs are rising for highly indebted sovereigns, credit rationing is undermining small and medium-size companies, and falling commodity prices are reducing exporting countries’ income. Increasing risk aversion is leading economic agents to adopt a wait-and-see stance that makes the slowdown partly self-fulfilling. - in Project-syndicate

Nouriel Roubini, (born March 29, 1958, Istanbul, Turkey), Turkish-born American economist and educator who was best known for predicting the 2007–08 subprime mortgage crisis in the United States and the subsequent global financial crisis.

Born to Iranian Jewish parents, Roubini moved with his family to Iran and Israel before they settled in Italy in 1962. After a year at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he studied economics at Bocconi University in Milan (B.A., 1982) and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1988), where he specialized in macroeconomics and international economics. He joined the economics faculty at Yale University in 1988 and taught there until 1995, when he moved to New York University. He also served as a visiting scholar to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), held single-year terms on the White House Council of Economic Advisers (1998–99) and at the U.S. Department of the Treasury (1999–2000), and cofounded (2004) the consulting firm Roubini Global Economics. Roubini spent much of his early career studying countries that experienced extreme economic failures, such as Mexico (in 1994), Thailand and other countries associated with the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Russia (1998), and Argentina (2000). He determined that each shared one common element: a massive current account deficit.(www.britannica.com)

Nouriel Roubini is the Chairman and CEO of Roubini Macro Associates, LLC, his own global macroeconomic consultancy firm. He is also a professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Dr. Roubini has extensive policy experience as well as broad academic credentials. From 1998 to 2000, he served as the senior economist for international affairs on the White House Council of Economic Advisors and then the senior advisor to the undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department, helping to resolve the Asian and global financial crises, among other issues. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and numerous other prominent public and private institutions have drawn upon his consulting expertise.