Time to Slip into Something Less Comfortable?

During the great credit party that raged around the world for the five years leading up to 2008, a few economists and investors studiously avoided the punch bowl. They stood in the corner, muttering darkly about how it would all end with the hangover of the century. They were outcasts. "I was lambasted and ridiculed as an idiot," says Michael Panzner, a stockbroker and author who began calling the collapse in 2005. "Like one of those guys holding a cardboard sign predicting apocalypse."

By the time Lehman Brothers collapsed and worldwide markets did their synchronized nosedive, Panzner had already published a book called and would soon follow up with . Bearishness is a countercyclical asset; as the economy fell, the professional reputation of doomsayers soared. Suddenly they were the party animals. Gary Shilling, a veteran investment guru based in New Jersey, was feted for nailing all 13 of his investment guidelines for 2008, most of which involved shorting banks and housing. Banking analyst Meredith Whitney, who had shocked her peers with a devastating report on Citigroup (C) when it was still widely viewed as fundamentally sound, started her own firm on the basis of her newfound celebrity. An obscure New York University professor named Nouriel Roubini, aka Dr. Doom, became a headliner on the international conference circuit, attracting actual groupies.