Global Crisis `Vastly Worse' Than 1930s, Taleb Says. May 7 (Bloomberg) -- The current global crisis is "vastly worse" than the 1930s because financial systems and economies worldwide have become more interdependent, "Black Swan" author Nassim Nicholas Taleb said. The global economy is heading into a "big deflation," though the risks of inflation are increasing as governments print more money, Taleb said at a conference in Singapore today. This could see gold and copper "rally massively," he added. "The gravity of the situation is vastly worse than the thirties," Taleb said. "Navigating the world is much harder than in the 1930s." The International Monetary Fund last month lowered its world economic growth forecasts and said the global recession will be deeper and the recovery slower than previously predicted as financial markets take longer to stabilize. The world economy will contract 1.3 percent this year, the IMF said. Taleb is a professor of risk engineering at New York University and also advises Universa Investments LP, a Santa Monica, California-based firm opened in 2007 by Mark Spitznagel, Taleb's former trading partner. Gold, copper and other "assets that China will like" are the best investment bets as currencies including the dollar and euro face pressures, Taleb added.