Author: | Lawrence Crooks | ISBN: | 1230000095534 |
Publisher: | Lawrence Crooks | Publication: | December 20, 2012 |
Imprint: | Language: | English |
Author: | Lawrence Crooks |
ISBN: | 1230000095534 |
Publisher: | Lawrence Crooks |
Publication: | December 20, 2012 |
Imprint: | |
Language: | English |
The Great Depression, like the Great Recession of 2008-2009, has been incorrectly framed as the result of a failure of our banking and investment institutions. This narrow focus on our financial institutions as the key causes of this type of crisis, while ignoring the rest of the economy, has dominated the discussion and our understanding of these events for close to a century. Yet we still have no clear explanation for the slow economic and employment growth that followed each of these two crises, or for the reasons behind the formation of the massive asset bubbles that preceded them and that seem to fly in the face of our belief in rational, efficient financial markets.
Like major storms and other weather events, these economic convulsions have understandable underlying causes. This book provides a broader framework in which to understand these fundamental forces and how they shaped the events of the Great Depression and our recent Recession. These two global economic storms were not the only ones of the industrial age but were preceded by the Long Depression, which started in 1873 and also impacted the rest of the world.
It is only in the last two centuries that we have experienced rapid economic growth that was faster than population growth. This rapid growth was clustered in the early industrializing countries and was unequal as industrialization initially diffused across Europe and the US. The US today finds itself in a similar position to the British Empire in 1873, which was the start of the transition from British to US economic dominance. Not understanding the underlying forces and causes of these three economic storms confines us to incomplete and ineffective solutions today. Global Economic Storms is the first and only book to probe to the root causes of these great crises and to lay out a rational approach to addressing those that loom on our horizon.
The Great Depression, like the Great Recession of 2008-2009, has been incorrectly framed as the result of a failure of our banking and investment institutions. This narrow focus on our financial institutions as the key causes of this type of crisis, while ignoring the rest of the economy, has dominated the discussion and our understanding of these events for close to a century. Yet we still have no clear explanation for the slow economic and employment growth that followed each of these two crises, or for the reasons behind the formation of the massive asset bubbles that preceded them and that seem to fly in the face of our belief in rational, efficient financial markets.
Like major storms and other weather events, these economic convulsions have understandable underlying causes. This book provides a broader framework in which to understand these fundamental forces and how they shaped the events of the Great Depression and our recent Recession. These two global economic storms were not the only ones of the industrial age but were preceded by the Long Depression, which started in 1873 and also impacted the rest of the world.
It is only in the last two centuries that we have experienced rapid economic growth that was faster than population growth. This rapid growth was clustered in the early industrializing countries and was unequal as industrialization initially diffused across Europe and the US. The US today finds itself in a similar position to the British Empire in 1873, which was the start of the transition from British to US economic dominance. Not understanding the underlying forces and causes of these three economic storms confines us to incomplete and ineffective solutions today. Global Economic Storms is the first and only book to probe to the root causes of these great crises and to lay out a rational approach to addressing those that loom on our horizon.