Banks Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Bail Out: Roubini

[Watchman]

Banks Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Bail Out: Roubini

CNBC.com
July 6, 2010

1. European governments face the quandary of being unable to afford to bail out banks that are still considered too big to fail, while the global economy is heading for a slowdown in the second half of the year, economist Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics told CNBC Tuesday.
   
2. Governments are running out of ways to counter a “massive slowdown” or the risk of a double-dip recession, Roubini said.
   
3. “A year ago we had all these policy bullets,” he said. “We could push down rates to zero, we had (quantitative easing), we could do a budget deficit of 10 percent of GDP (or) backstop the financial system.”
   
4. “Banks at this point are too big to fail, but also too big to be bailed, especially in Europe where the sovereigns are in trouble and therefore the ability to backstop the financial system is not there,” he said.