A common strain of post-crisis critique – or second-guessing – focuses on quantitative models and the people who either designed them or blindly depended on them until it was too late. Nouriel Roubini has a problem with quantitative models and how they were applied – little surprise there – but the economist known as Dr. Doom makes a systematic indictment in his new book, “Crisis Economics” (Penguin Press).

The chairman of consulting firm Roubini Global Economics and New York University professor distances himself from Nassim Nicolas Taleb of “Black Swan” fame, saying that crises have become common enough that they have some degree of predictability. Roubini makes a distinction between risk and uncertainty – and we have been dealing with both since late summer, 2007. The difference between them is like playing Russian roulette with one gun that you hold and have loaded with a bullet in one of the six chambers, versus a gun someone else has control of. “The odds of dying are impossible to quantify,” says Roubini. ....

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