Roubini, a doomsaying economist who's as well-known for his Tribeca loft parties as his increasingly grandiose predictions of worldwide economic collapse, took a break from wooing young women on Facebook to post a few photos of a copter ride in Brazil. (He simply had to spring for a helicopter "as Sao Paulo car traffic is THE worst in the world.) Check out who he hung out with: New York Times loan shark Carlos Slim Helù, disaster-exploiting hedge fund manager John Paulson, and demise-of-empire chronicler Niall Ferguson. They know all about meltdowns, too!

The Forum has the world's elite meet and greet at the Swiss resort town of Davos every year. And every year, organizers pretend that it's a serious event for serious bankers to talk about serious economics. This year, the pretense is more serious than ever.

The evidence in their favor: Goldman Sachs has nixed its party, and John Thain, the ousted Merrill chief, will no longer host a Friday breakfast. The evidence against: The conquerors of Wall Street, like JPMorgan Chase and Barclays, will still host fizzy bashes.

The very theme of the event is denial. Klaus Schwab, the event's founder, has a neat semantic dodge for avoiding talk of current economic woes: He's entitled the event "Shaping the Post-Crisis World." Yes, we'd all rather think about when the unpleasantness will be over.

No chance of that with Roubini around. He will ruin Schwab's plan two different ways. The New York University economist made his bones by predicting the mortgage meltdown and the ensuing recession. He will surely not want to softpedal his doom-mongering for airy talk of the future. But at home in Manhattan, he's better known for the louche soirées he throws for young women in his vulva-studded TriBeCa loft. (Which, by the way, we applaud!) Roubini embodies the true spirit of Davos: wild partying in the face of the world's doom.

And once he's joined by Allison, the globetrotting stalker of married Internet executives, we must all dress up for the apocalypse.

(Photoillustration by Richard Blakeley)

One thing everyone agrees on: The current economic contraction, which began a year ago, will be the longest on record since the Great Depression. The optimistic scenario, voiced in the New York Times, is that it will end by the middle of 2009, as the housing market recovers and the government pours money into public works. That will put the recession at 18 to 21 months. Even playboy economist Nouriel Roubini, the professional doomsayer who installed a wall of vaginas in his personal misbegotten real-estate venture, thinks that the worst-case scenario is a recession that ends by December 2009 — 24 months. Consumers are resilient, economists say, and love nothing better than earning money and spending it.

But that's a rather U.S.-centric forecast, amid a globalized economy. (Who knew the halls of economics departments were filled with such isolationists?)

There are, even today, sectors of industry which make physical things. So old media, I know! The business is called manufacturing, and its forecasts are abysmal. A strengthening dollar, predicted as the rest of the world suffers economically, will hurt manufacturers' exports. And weak foreign markets will hurt many of the technology giants which thrived on overseas growth.

So could the recession last through 2010? Quite possibly. But it's a scenario no one's contemplating — even the most bearish of economists.

(Photo via the New York Times)

But confronted by Mashable about his relationship collection, Alsop freely fessed up: "In his mid-50s, Alsop reaches out to young attractive women and asks if he can be their friend. Many say yes. Alsop says he's an old guy and it makes him feel as if he's got something going on. There's no downside for Alsop. Some may think it's weird, but it doesn't change anything for him."

In case you had any doubts on how free-thinking the Bay Area is on such matters, Robin Wolaner, Alsop's "No. 1 girlfriend" and the CEO of social network TeeBeeDee, supports her man's Facebook habit. Even though, in the same Mashable article, she recommends against accepting friend requests from people you don't really know. Like, say, her 50something venture-capitalist boyfriend.

Ciao bella. How are you fashionista glitterata glamorata?

I am in decadent St Trop now vacationing with Arab Sheiks, Russian oligarchs and assorted aristocratic Euro trash. More silicon here than in Silicon Valley...lol

I had to escape NYC as my Barron's interview (http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253240/) on $2 trillion of losses made the markets swoon last week and angry mobs of investors were chasing me.

So life is a beach here and am studying Beach Economics and the IELs (International Elites of Leisure) with a grant from the Institute for Advanced Vacations; hard job but somebody gotta do it.

This coming Sunday August 17th the New York Times Magazine (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/index.html) will publish a long profile article (4 pages and 3000 words) about me. So beware of markets shivering the next day.

Want to come visit here in St Trop? I would be too lucky.

I will be back this weekend to NYC but off then to Brazil, UK and Sweden. But I will have parties over the coming weekends.

I hope to see you in nyc if not in St Trop. A drink some time too?

xoxo

Nouriel

It's no wonder Roubini has earned the nickname Dr. Doom. One website suggests a Halloween mask of his unsmiling visage. And the New York Times chose a photograph (left) of the Stern School 'permabear' to go with this description. "With a dour manner and an aura of gloom about him, Roubini gives the impression of being permanently pained, as if the burden of what he knows is almost too much for him to bear. He rarely smiles, and when he does, his face, topped by an unruly mop of brown hair, contorts into something more closely resembling a grimace."

It's time to call bullshit. The image of Dr. Doom may satisfy the needs of the media and partygoers this Halloween—but Roubini is anything but dour. The 50-year-old Iranian-Jewish economist is a promiscuous Facebook friend who draws a cosmopolitan crowd to the frequent parties at his Tribeca loft—an apartment with walls indented with plaster vulvas, incidentally. As this party photograph shows (right), the professor's gloomy public image is entirely at odds with his playboy lifestyle. In a Facebook message, Roubini makes no apology:

Dear Nick, I work very very hard and I also enjoy life. My home is also partially a cultural salon where I host book parties, debate and election night events, independent film screnings, live music nights, theater/performance acts, fashion shows, dinner parties and even plain old fashioned dance parties.

I have this professional Dr Doom nickname but I am quite a cheerful person with a few close friends and eclectic group of friends who, like most New Yorkers, are members of the creative class. The innovations of lawyers and bankers can be as creative as those of visual or performing artists, at times too creative you may say given the current financial meltdown. So I live life to its fullest. To paraphrase Seinfeld; anything wrong with that?