A biography for Nouriel Roubinihasn’t been written yet.
“I think it's true that the 1 Percent or the elite are living in a world of, maybe, excessive privilege, and they don't fully realize how much pain and suffering, how much anxiety exists out there.”
“If we didn't have greed, market economies wouldn't be as innovative as they are. But in my view, greed has to be contained by the fear of losses, so there has to be a system where, if you take too much risk, you go into bankruptcy. You don't systematically bail out people who take excessive risks.”
“A home is a home, and excess supply leads to prices falling.”
“Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers. This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.”
“In an extreme credit crunch, leveraged purchases of gold cause forced sales, because any price correction triggers margin calls. As a result, gold can be very volatile - upward and downward - at the peak of a crisis.”
“What we need to understand is, one, that there are market failures; and two, that there are things like asset bubbles and irrational exuberance. There are periods of booms, bubbles, and manias. These things, if left to themselves, can lead to crashes, to busts, to panics.”
“What is important to me is that when I write something, people listen to me. I provide my wisdom to people, whether they agree or not.”
“Celebrity has become a burden. There are more demands on your time. People think it is glamorous to fly places. But it is not - even if you travel business class and stay in wonderful hotels, you end 10,000 miles away from home.”
“If you worry about financial Armageddon, it is indeed metaphorically the time to stock your bunker with guns, ammunition, canned food and gold bars.”