The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008

What better guide could we have to the 2008 financial crisis and its resolution than the newest Nobel Laureate in Economics, columnist and author Paul Krugman? In a dazzling and prescient polemic, now fully update from his 1999 classic, Krugman shows how today's situation parallels the events that caused the Great Depression. He surveys the economic crises that swept across Asia, Russia and Latin America in the 1990s, and reveals that those crises were a warning for all of us. Now depression economics has returned: when the great housing bubble of the mid-2000s burst, the Western financial system proved as vulnerable as those of developing countries caught up in earlier crises - and a replay of the 1930s seems all top possible. Krugman shows how it happened and lays out the steps that must be taken to turn around a world economy sliding into a deep recession. Brilliantly crafted in his trademark style - lucid, lively, and supremely informed - this will become a cornerstone of the debate over how to respond to our current economic predicament. 'A lucid and punchy analysis of the dangers posed by global financial markets and a wake-up call for complacent or economically ignorant policymakers' ECONOMIST 'One of the world's most talented economists . . . his combination of wit and clarity makes him a true heir to Keynes' INDEPENDENT 'Unlikely to be rivalled in its lucidity . . . a rattling good read' FINANCIAL TIMES