Until March of 2007, Stephen Roach was the chief economist for Morgan Stanley and the analyst to read on the Morgan Stanley Global Economic Forum page. But his repeated warnings of a bubble economy about to burst went unappreciated by his paymasters and - rumor has it - many Morgan Stanley investors. Yet even as they moved Roach to the Morgan Stanley Asia desk, far away from his forum, the housing bubble he warned of was already showing strong evidence of impending collapse. Late last summer, of course, the subprime market in the financial sector slipped suddenly into meltdown mode, leaving not only homeowners in the lurch, but striking deep into the profits of the likes of Citibank. Now it seems that not only the US economy but others, too, are sliding into something truly ominous. So inside the year since Roach was silenced, we have moved from bubble-era euphoria to the growing possibilities of a major recession, and some believe even a 1930s style collapse. So Roach is clearly someone worth listening to, in this instance comparing the US with Japan's 1990s implosion.