Book Description
Surely the Great Depression could never happen again. Or
could it? One of the world's top economists gives us a
sobering tour of the global economic crises of the last two
years. Today, the terrible tragedy of the Great Depression
looks gratuitous and unnecessary: Our economists and policy
makers simply have gained too many tools, too much experience
since then. It could never happen again. Or could it? Over
the course of the last two years, six Asian economies have
experienced an economic slump that bears an eerie resemblance
to the Great Depression. Russia, once a military superpower
but today an economic midget, defaulted on its debt in 1998,
an event that, halfway around the world, drove Brazilian
interest rates through the roof and terrified the US bond
market. Some of the brightest financiers in the world,
working for Long-Term Capital Corporation, thought they had
the market licked only to find themselves in a jam that had
all the makings of the over-leveraged positions that caused
the 1929 stock market crash. Then, in January of 1999, it was
Brazil's turn, with a financial crisis and currency
devaluation that is still playing itself out. Paul Krugman,
who "writes better than any economist since John Maynard
Keynes" according to Fortune magazine, recounts these
events and more: he points out that they raise significant
questions for which economists may not have answers.
