One year ago, with the global economy fully immersed in its ongoing downslide, Philippe Dauba-Pantanacce, a senior economist for the Middle East region at Standard Chartered Bank, went on a speaking tour. As he listened to economists and audiences from around the region, Dauba-Pantanacce couldn’t help noticing a disconcerting trend — many people thought the economic crisis was ending, and the world was headed for a recovery. “Of course,” Dauba-Pantanacce said recently, “we can see now, in fact, that’s not what happened.” Dauba-Pantanacce, who encourages people to call him Philippe (he knows his name is hard to pronounce for non-francophones), prides himself on bringing a dissenting view to economic discussions. In the fall of 2007, for instance, Standard Chartered had been one of the only major banks to predict that interest rates in the United States would drop to one percent. They were right. Late last month, Philippe brought his
