US economist Paul Krugman has warned of a "global recession" and the "mother of all adverse effects" as Donald Trump becomes 45th president of the United States.
Writing in the New York Times, Mr Krugman said "under any circumstances, putting an irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people in charge of the nation with the world’s most important economy would be very bad news."
But, he said, the situation is compounded by the fact that the world economy remains in a fragile state, eight years after the great financial crisis.
He says that even though a recovery is being felt, "we’ve been doing OK only thanks to extremely low interest rates", and while there is nothing wrong with that, he adds, the Fed and its global counterparts have little room to manoeuvre and "therefore very little ability to respond to adverse events".
He said what comes now is the "mother of all adverse events and what it brings with it is a regime that will be ignorant of economic police and hostile to any effort to make it work.
"… So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened."
