Quotes from Nouriel Roubini

Emerging markets often get in trouble when the Fed hikes interest rates rapidly, or the price of exported commodities falls sharply—or both.

We totter now on a precipice, the ground shaking beneath us. Yet most of us still imagine that the future will resemble the past. That's a whopping mistake. New warning signs look clear and compelling.

Blaming crashes and recessions on random and unpredictable shocks beyond our control has led experts and policy makers to view subsequent crises through the wrong lens. There are random and unpredictable shocks in life, but that doesn't mean we can't face them honestly and prepare for a world in which we know they happen even if we don't know when.

What if the last seventy-five years has been the exception rather than the rule? What if the last three-quarters of a century has lulled us into believing that the next few decades will continue on the same path? What if we have forgotten the lessons of history from a century ago? In the first four decades of the twentieth century, we faced World War I, then the deadly Spanish flu of 1918–19, then deglobalization and bouts of hyperinflation, and then the Great Depression.

The patterns of a century ago may be a harbinger of what we are facing now. In many ways, the megathreats of today are worse than the threats of a century ago.

Start with the observation that megathreats are structural. Income and wealth inequality, massive private and public debts, financial instability, climate change, global pandemics, artificial intelligence, and geopolitical rivalries have deep roots in worldwide systems and cultures. We cannot attack their causes without risking unintended consequences.