Dow 4,000. Food shortages. A bubble in Treasury notes.

Fortune spoke to eight of the market's sharpest thinkers and what they had to say about the future is frightening.

Nouriel Roubini:

Things are going to be awful for everyday people.

Meredith Whitney:

I think the overall economy will be worse than people expect.

Robert Schiller:

Some people who are so inclined might go more into the market here because there's a real chance it will go up a lot. But that's very risky. It could easily fall by half again.

Jim Rogers:

I cannot imagine why anybody would give money to the U.S. government for 30 years for less than a 4% yield. I certainly wouldn't. There are going to be gigantic amounts of bonds coming to the market, and inflation will be coming back.

Bill Gross:

Twelve months of the Obama Nation will not be sufficient to heal the damage of a half-century's excessive leverage.

Sheila Bair:

We need to return to the culture of thrift that my mother and her generation learned the hard way through years of hardship and deprivation.

8 Really, Really Scary Economic Predictions