Back last year, I did a blog entry asking how long the recession would last. At the time, I said it could take as long as five years to work its way through the system which would take it up to 2013.

Then in February I did I book review in this entry where I said that 2010 to 2012 and that it would continue on and off until mid to late 2012.

Now Dr Doom Nouriel Roubini, the man who predicted this financial crisis, is saying it will run three years taking it right through to 2012. ""We could end up ... with a 36-month recession, that could be "L-shaped stagnation, or near depression," he says.

Still, there is room for some optimism. Kind of. Roubin says the risk of a total meltdown has been reversed for now. Instead, the economy is going through "a death by a thousand cuts."

Or as Jack Ma, chief executive of Alibaba Group told the New York Times, next year we will just be getting used to it. He says it will last three to five years, and if you don't accept that, you are in trouble.