Clinton hopes for economic recovery in 15 months

Former President Bill Clinton told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Thursday that he hoped an economic recovery would take place within 15 months and said the financial world needs to make money "the old fashioned way."

Speaking at the summit in Davos, Clinton said he hopes the global recession would end in the next 12 to 15 months but cautioned that "nobody knows" when it will end.

The former president predicted that the financial system would be changed significantly as a result of the current crisis. "There will be a great reluctance, not only in our country, but throughout the world, to get into that kind of carelessness and risk assessment and high-leverage artificial growth situation again, and I believe when we get through this we'll have a 21st century finance system that will make money the old fashioned way, by investing in goods and services that are needed by the modern world," he said.

Clinton predicted the world would still enjoy a "modern economy" but he said he expected a return to "a lot more traditional" finance. "People will still make money but it won't be like it was in this decade, and I think that will be a good thing," Clinton told the forum.

The 42 president also heaped praise on the 44th. "President Obama has a good economic team," he said, and indicated that they would have a grasp of the "enormity and complexity of the challenges." But Clinton also said the challenges could be seen in a way that was not so difficult. "These problems are at one level mind numbingly complex but at another level really simple," he said.

The central problem he cited was global asset devaluation, which he said started in the U.S., and therefor the U.S. must lead the way in solving the problem.

Clinton would not predict how long the global recession would last, but he did joke about the situation. "People always ask when will it be over, and I wanna say 3:15, November 7, 2009," said the former president. But in the end, he acknowledged that he did not really know.