By pointing out flaws in the financial system and the economy that now seem obvious, a number of doomsayers went from economic laughingstocks to financial superstars overnight -- and they could soon be rewarded for their bearish forecasts.

Headlined by Nouriel “Dr. Doom” Roubini and Meredith Whitney, these forecasters were proven correct by the same economic events that have cost millions of people their jobs and investment portfolios.

While Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson and other caretakers of the U.S. economy saw no reason to worry, they foreshadowed the 18-month recession and worst credit crisis since the Great Depression.  

“They were the most incredible -- and all of a sudden the surprise scenario is realized,” said Campbell Harvey, a business professor at Duke University who also predicted the crisis. “That’s basically what happens in forecasting when a surprise occurs. Some people are going to be right."

To be sure, Roubini, Whitney and many other doomsayers like Peter Schiff and Robert Shiller were hardly correct 100% of the time. While their forecasts have all varied in some aspects from reality, they were ahead of the curve and have seen their profiles soar dramatically because of their predictions.

Connecting the Dots

Roubini and Whitney are among the most sought-after analysts on the economy, something that can only help their advisory businesses. Roubini was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world, and Whitney was mentioned in U.S. News & World Report’s list of top 25 market movers.

“Roubini warned that there was a monstrous bubble in the housing market and that the bursting of that bubble would cause much of the financial system to collapse. And so it has turned out, with even the most seemingly outlandish of Roubini's predictions matched or even exceeded by reality,” Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in Time.

For his part, Roubini says he’s not sure if he deserves to be in such a list, given the multitude of other influential people in the world.

“In many ways I simply connected the dots in these different strands of thinking and warnings,” Roubini wrote in his blog last week.

Whitney also connected the dots as weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and rescue of American International Group (AIG), she said: "It feels like I'm at the epicenter of the biggest financial crisis in history.”

She famously received death threats while an analyst at Oppenheimer after predicting Citigroup (C), then the nation’s largest bank, would need to cut its dividend to offset swelling losses. Sixteen months and three government rescues later, that prediction looks rather tame today.

Parlaying Doomsday Forecasts into a Payday

Both Whitney and Roubini stand to cash in on their bearish predictions through new potential business for their advisory firms (Whitney’s opened earlier this year), possible book deals and speaking fees. Ironically, those paydays could be delayed by the same economic weakness they forecasted.

“Today it’s not clear how much you can make because people are slashing their research expenditures. But later on you can command a speaking fee that is much greater than it used to be,” said Harvey.

Others have already had notable success in parlaying their doomsday predictions into profits.

“Frankly, the real money to be made is not selling your research but trading on your research,” said Harvey. “That’s the most valuable way to go.”

That list is headlined by John Paulson, who made a fortune from his belief of a bubble in the housing market by correctly betting subprime mortgages would lose value.

Paulson’s reward for being right? It was about $3.5 billion for 2007 -- believed to be one of the biggest Wall Street paydays ever, according to Forbes, which ranks Paulson the 78th richest American with a net worth of $4.5 billion.

Shiller has also been credited with correctly predicting economic doom as the Yale economist and best-selling author forecasted both the housing and tech bubbles. 

Going Out on a Forecasting Limb

Harvey knows what it feels like to be an economic outcast. After the stock market crashed in 1987, he bucked the bearish trend and correctly predicted 4% GDP growth for the following year.

“I went out on a limb and was basically laughed at. I guess my forecasting stock went up a bit,” said Harvey.

In 2005 Harvey met with Sen. Richard Shelby, then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, at a conference in Davos, Switzerland. Harvey said his warnings of “massive systemic risk” and “a house of cards situation” in the financial system fell on deaf ears.

“Nothing happened,” said Harvey.

But how do the doomsayers feel now that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up more than 25% over the past two months thanks to hopes for an economic recovery?

Not surprisingly, Roubini believes it's just a bear-market rally as the recovery for the financial markets, banks and the real economy still has a ways to go.

However, even Dr. Doom sees a reason for hope, sort of.

“So there may be finally light at the end of the tunnel but later rather than sooner, in 2010 rather than in the second half of 2009,” Roubini wrote in his blog.