'Dr. Doom' predicts some big banks will be nationalized

When one schedules an interview with NYU Economics Professor Nouriel 'Dr. Doom' Roubini, it's usually best to be prepared for grim news. And on Thursday, "Dr. Doom" did not disappoint, predicting that the United States government will nationalize selected big banks amid an economic contraction he sees continuing through the end of 2009.

"The stock market is a bit ahead of the real macroeconomic and financial news," Roubini, a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business and the chairman of Roubini Global Economics,told Bloomberg News in London Thursday. "We'll have some major banks going belly up that will need to be taken over." Roubini, who called the current stock advance a "bear market rally," did not name which major banks he thought would fall under government control.