Stephen Roach On The Global Economy

Roach is one of the best well-known economists in my estimation. His link on my blog probably doesn't refer to any of his updates any more. I'll probably remove it at some point since he took Morgan's top job in Asia, economic updates aren't really his responsibility.

I really don't look to Roach to make timing calls on the economy or even that he is necessarily right any more than he is wrong. Sometimes when embedded in the machine, it's harder to be objective or to see beyond the bubble. But, one thing I can always count on with Roach is an unvarnished perspective and his own thoughts rather than a regurgitation of the same safe remarks handed around by most economists.

What you won't hear from Roach is the pablum being passed around about second derivatives and third derivatives and green shoots. In fact he rails on this gibberish. I mean really. It's ridiculous. I don't even think most people who are quoting this stuff could actually calculate a second or third derivative. It's herd behavior. And as George Carlin famously said, I like people except when there are more than say three of them together. Then I don't like them anymore. I would classify this as the madness of crowds. (He also said he only likes people in short bursts.) I wish I could find the video on Youtube to link to because it's hilarious.

Here's the link to his Bloomberg audio interview.