In light of plummeting stocks and rising joblessness, economist Nouriel Roubini isn't too optimistic on the state of the global economy.
Roubini, whose often foreboding economic views have garnered him the nicknames "Dr. Doom" and "permabear" in the media, painted a characteristically bleak picture of the global economy. The economist told the Wall Street Journal that the chance of a global recession is greater than 50 per cent, and the next few months will reveal the direction the economy will be going.
"Karl Marx had it right. At some point, capitalism can self-destroy itself," he said in an interview with the Journal's Simon Constable.
While Roubini says the global economy isn't so bad that capitalism is self-destructing, he did call the current economic climate the "second leg" of what occurred during the Great Depression.
Roubini has experience as an economic adviser in the White House. Under the Clinton administration, he was first a senior economist in the White House Council of Economic Advisers before moving to the Treasury department as a senior adviser to Timothy Geithner, who was then the undersecretary for international affairs and is now President Obama's Treasury secretary.
The following video originally appeared at The Wall Street Journal.