"So how do you think China will react to a U.S. default?" I asked Stephen Roach, former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, on a crisp fall day on Yale's campus.
"Can I sneeze?" The white-haired economist known for his China views questioned back.
Roach, currently senior fellow at Yale University, is suffering from a cold he caught that morning. But it's not stopping him from a tight schedule no less demanding than any of his former Wall Street days.
And his thoughts remain as sharp as ever.
"The policy experiment of the Fed is very risky. It's untested. It's unconventional. In my view, it's a big mistake," he says. "(The Fed is finding out) that it might be difficult to get out from what could be a 'policy trap' that it set itself."
This means the current crisis, dating back to five years ago, is far from over. And the future is full of uncertainty.
But Roach is still a diehard optimist on China, at least for the long-term. He brushes off fears of a China slowdown as "vastly overblown".
"Today's Chinese economy is a different economy from one that has historically been growing at 10%," he says. "There will be spectacular opportunities (in the consumer and services sectors) for foreign investments."
To listen to Roach's conversation with me in a podcast, click here. To watch a video, click here.
