Like the exhortations of Jeremiah to the nation of Israel before the first temple's destruction, the warnings of economist Nouriel Roubini fell on deaf ears.

For the past two years Roubini, a professor at New York University, has cautioned about a huge housing bubble whose bursting would lead to a 20% drop in home prices; a collapse in sub prime mortgages; a severe banking crisis and credit crunch; the near-failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and a US recession of amagnitude not seen since the Great Depression. So far, this latter-day prophet of doom has been on the mark, though time will tell about the recession part.