In an interview on Wednesday with a Bloomberg correspondent, Roubini let out another dire prophecy, although it’s not very specific and not different than what he’s been saying before.  Here are some excerpts from that interview.  You can also watch the whole video from the link below.

Basically the message is that the picture is still getting worse.

“It will be worse than the 70’s and early 80’s…will be a global recession…this year and next year.  Much worse than ‘91…. unemployment all the way to 9%.  … free-falling retail sales….house prices are gonna fall another 15% before they bottom out… I don’t think [the Fed actions] are gonna be effective…whatever the Fed does, doesn’t matter for market rates… we need a major aggressive fiscal stimulus… a 300-400 hundred billion dollar fiscal package…”

Roubini thinks we need to back the automakers, that it’s politically and economically unavoidable.

“the housing recession is still getting worse….the consumers are not spending even on non-durables… there is no bottom to this recession…”

Watch the video here.

Well, it’s been just about a month and a half now that markets have really been in the nosedive.  Maybe slightly more.  It really started to dive maybe just by the end of September.  October was the worst month on record (for several measures) since the post-war (WW2) period.  But November hasn’t really been much better, even though there haven’t been any new financial scandals - just this auto bailout business.

But ever since yesterday it seems we’re on a new roll-down again.  Here’s what I’ve learned. Just about all of this comes from BNN reports - they interview key players in the industry on a daily basis:

(1) Canada’s Royal Bank is almost two-thirds the size of US Citigroup (compare market caps of about 55 billion to only about 35 billion (and the latter might actually be closer to 25 billion).
(2) October was actually a deflationary month.  That’s right.  No inflation in October, but actual deflation.
(3) Canada’s Bank of Nova Scotia and TD are starting to make writedowns on bad debt… others might follow them…
(4) Oil’s under $50/barrell now…. serious stuff.
(5) Citibank fell below $5.00 today.  That’s insane.  They say it’s looking to go to zero… I bought in around $18.00 and I’m glad I didn’t buy more at $9.00…. I’ll keep waiting at this point.
(6) Teck Cominco in Canada is cutting its dividend.  Could be the first of many.

Basically, we pretty much really are in freefall… the early November rallies were comforting, and some of the aid packages probably have helped a great deal, but I guess overall there is still too much uncertainty and too many hedge funds still making redemptions.  (Saturdays are redemption days).  November is also historically known as the time when tax-loss selling for the year begins, so we’re probably seeing some of that, too… I really doubt holiday spending is going to improve anything.  I think not much is going to improve until February, once markets start getting used to Obama in the House, and maybe once one of the auto companies finally goes bankrupt.  Kick out those old white guys who still flew in private jets to the Congress meeting today.  They should be ashamed.

BNN’s Amanda Lang and Kevin O’Leary reported today on SqueezePlay that three U.S. cities have just written letters into the Treasury asking for their own bailouts - Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia are starting to look as financially well-off as California, which is completely in the red.  Is this a sign of worse to come?  What’s the difference between a bailout and a usual subsidy?

It occurred to me earlier today - the irony of a situation in which the US government might “bailout” GM and Ford and yet the same administration failed to build sufficient levees in hurricane-torn New Orleans - let alone all the help and reconstruction that city did not receive when it needed it.  But the bailouts of these dinosaur-Detroit automakers get this much attention… amazing.

I’m also more than a bit nervous about this weekend’s G20 meeting - there better not be any drastic tinkering of the world global system - we don’t want to be releasing too many butterflies into world weather maps, if you know what I mean… it’s exactly what David Smick was warning about in his latest book, and I think it shows how we’re now at a politically fragile moment globally as well.

In other words, the economic crisis has grown from a US mess (Aug. 2007-Sept. 2008) into a global financial mess (Sept-Oct 2008) and now this month I think it’s really become more than a mere economic mess.  With this G20 meeting, it’s gone political.  News reports today showed that Ecuador is going to miss a foreign debt payment, and that Canada and the US are thinking of partnering up in order to save the gas-guzzling market.

I really don’t like the look of any of it.  It’s no longer seeming like some storm that’s going to pass over.  We al know we’re in a global recession now, but it’s no longer just a recession.  The changes that are being made now are going to create new problems in the future.  There’s less transparency and more confusion at this point.  That’s what’s really holding the markets back.

And I’m really frustrated that our (Canadian) currency isn’t reflecting the real worth of the Canadian balance sheets.  It’s completely ridiculous that the most corrupt treasury is seeing all the gains right now.