by Calculated Risk on 8/02/2008 06:00:00 PM

From Barron's: Yes, That's $2 Trillion of Debt-Related Losses A few excerpts:

Barron's: Unfortunately for the rest of us, you have a pretty good track record. How much more misery lies ahead?

Roubini: We are in the second inning of a severe, protracted recession, which started in the first quarter of this year and is going to last at least 18 months, through the middle of next year. A systemic banking crisis will go on for awhile, with hundreds of banks going belly up.
...
The taxpayer's bill is going to be huge. I estimate this financial crisis will lead to credit losses of at least $1 trillion and most likely closer to $2 trillion. When I made this analysis in February everybody thought I was a lunatic. But a few weeks later the International Monetary Fund came out with an estimate of $945 billion, Goldman Sachs (GS) estimated $1.1 trillion and UBS (UBS) $1 trillion. Hedge-fund manager John Paulson recently estimated the losses would be $1.3 trillion, and late last month Bridgewater Associates came up with an estimate of $1.6 trillion. So, at this point $1 trillion isn't a ceiling, it's a floor. And the banks, as I've said, have written down only about $300 billion of subprime debt.

I think $2 trillion is too high, but the number will definitely be huge.
from 2007:

"Some estimates are in the order of between $50 billion and $100 billion of losses associated with subprime credit problems."
Chairman Bernanke, July 19, 2007

Of course that was only subprime losses, and the problem was "contained".