Greece Could Be Trip-wire For Double-dip Recession

Simon Johnson, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute and former Economics expert at the International Monetary Fund, dropped THAT bomb on Fox Business during Thursday’s “Countdown to the Closing Bell.”

I’ve been hassling you all to pay attention to what happens in Europe because it could very well be the next subprime disaster du jour.  The so-called “PIIGS” nations— Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain– have spent too much and borrowed too much and now the debt they’ve been carrying is showing severe signs of distress.   Could the long fingers of debt reach all the way across the Atlantic to scratch us here in the United States and draw blood? They already have. Witness the stock sell-off Thursday sparked in part by the Greek Tragedy.

Johnson joined long-time investor and market-watcher Mario “Super-Mario” Gabelli of GAMCO for a fascinating discussion about why and whether this should matter to you.  I’m telling you it does, but listen to Johnson’s belief as to why Greece and these faltering nations could spark the much-feared, double-dip recession.  Just click on the clip below.

–Liz