Monday, February 18, 2013

The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008

[August 2009] This well-written book provides a history of recent economic crises and delves in to the underlying reasons for economic problems. It is very well illustrated with examples from Latin America, Asia, as well as a "babysitting co-op". The discussion is fairly non-technical and makes the basic economic theory easily understandable by non economists. One argument that he brings out is that of the "self-fulfilling prophecy" When many people think something will happen in the economy, it is likely to happen - even if most fundamentals indicate otherwise. The example of the Asian economic crisis (and especially Japan) served as the basis for the original version of the book. In this update, they are used to help foreshadow and illustrate the current economic problems. The "new" discussion is well integrated, allowing the book to read like something that was written specifically to discuss current economic conditions.

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