I always enjoy reading Stephen Roach's writings and thoughts. His latest article was published earlier this week in the Financial Times - but as usual, can be found on the Morgan Stanley site.

For any of us who actually are paying attention to what is happening around us, which appears to not be many, from my perspective, most of this doesn't come as a surprise.

I would be interested to hear what Mr Roach says behind closed doors...

Here are some quotes.

"The world’s main growth engine, the US, is slowing.  That is the verdict from the labour market, with job growth in the past four months running 35 percent below average since early 2004.  It is the verdict from the housing market, where an emerging downturn in residential construction activity is knocking at least 1 percentage point off the GDP growth trend of the past three years.  And notwithstanding July’s temporary bounce-back in retail sales, it is a message from the consumer, whose inflation-adjusted spending growth fell to 2.5 percent in the spring period – one percentage point below the heady trend of the past decade.

The confluence of higher energy prices, rising debt-servicing burdens, and negative personal saving rates reinforces the possibility of a pullback in discretionary US consumption and GDP growth.

The world is about to lose significant support from the key driving force on the demand side of the equation – the American consumer.  

The European economy is about to be hit with a “triple whammy”: a big tightening in fiscal policy, the delayed impact of monetary tightening, and the drag of a stronger euro.  

China has a seriously overheated economy.  With real GDP surging at an 11.3 percent annual rate in the spring period and industrial output growing at a record 19.5 percent year on year in June, Beijing has little choice but to introduce tightening initiatives.  

The world’s big oil producers would also feel repercussions from a Chinese slowdown.  As would China’s Asian suppliers, such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

All this and steak knives too!

Because all this is happening with a backdrop of global warming and what that brings.... I hate to be a harbinger of bad tidings, but I can not see any way that there will not be significant problems for the global economy coming down the turnpike.

The good news is this: This is the time for all of us to look to how we can help manage through the challenges that are ahead. This is when there will be shifts in political clout. There will be opportunities for new technologies that are undreamt of. Because all the while there is also a backdrop of unbelievable amounts of investment cash!