MONTAGNE: Well, what do you see as the outlook in the near future for the United States?

Prof. ROUBINI: Well, in the U.S. there is a beginning of an economic recovery. But in my view, this recovery is going to anemic, sub-par, below trend for the next couple of years for two reasons: First of all, you have over-leveraged U.S. consumers that over time have to start consuming at the rate slower than their income in order to save more. Secondly, like in Europe right now, we have very large budget deficits in the United States.

If we keep on running deficits of a trillion dollars, over time, we are also going to be in a situation which markets are going to start to worry about the sustainability of the U.S. deficit and public debt. That has not occurred yet, but the chance it might occur are significant. Therefore, over the medium term, the U.S. will have to think about raising revenues and cutting government spending to prevent the kind of crisis we’re seeing right now in the euro zone.