How soon until we get serious about investment?

Because without a massive dose of investment, many of the large economies of the world are obviously doomed to a MAJOR slowdown.

Except, Roubini, it doesn't have to be this way.  In fact, we could have a new golden age in 18 months if we ignore the fools who have driven the economy into the ditch.

Double-Dip Days

Nouriel Roubini

2010-07-16

NEW YORK – The global economy, artificially boosted since the recession of 2008-2009 by massive monetary and fiscal stimulus and financial bailouts, is headed towards a sharp slowdown this year as the effect of these measures wanes. Worse yet, the fundamental excesses that fueled the crisis – too much debt and leverage in the private sector (households, banks and other financial institutions, and even much of the corporate sector) – have not been addressed.

Private-sector deleveraging has barely begun. Moreover, there is now massivere-leveraging of the public sector in advanced economies, with huge budget deficits and public-debt accumulation driven by automatic stabilizers, counter-cyclical Keynesian fiscal stimulus, and the immense costs of socializing the financial system’s losses.

At best, we face a protracted period of anemic, below-trend growth in advanced economies as deleveraging by households, financial institutions, and governments starts to feed through to consumption and investment. At the global level, the countries that spent too much – the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, and elsewhere – now need to deleverage and are spending, consuming, and importing less. more