In previous decades, sneak attacks, stock-market crashes, and other great crises became hinges on which American history swung in dramatically new directions.
It would be easy to think that the rainforest was saved, or at least, that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest is no longer one of the great crises facing a planet finally reaching consensus on the issue of global warming.
Mr Rogoff was careful to say that the malign effects of the subprime mess might not be as great as those of previous crises.
Critics of some mild regulatory forbearance during this most serious of crises since the Great Depression will no doubt cite transparency as essential, but the two can go together.
Lott explains that in 5 of the last 6 financial crises, excluding only the Great Depression itself, booming economic growth during the recovery exceeded the decline in the previous recession by 6 percentage points.
FORBES: Under Obamanomics, America Stumbles Into Another Recession
By contrast, during the 41-years since going off gold, the U.S. has suffered the Great Inflation of the 1970s, two of the worst recessions since the Great Depression, and now a dozen financial crises.
FORBES: The Budget Stalemate Shows The Need For Monetary Reform
Among other boons, for the time being we can forget about the deficit, because one thing we know from the Great Depression and Keynesian economics is that in crises like this the government has to get out there and spend.
"This is probably one of the most serious financial crises that we've had since the Great Depression, " Carter said.
Innovations in finance have led to more and deeper financial crises, with the current crisis the worst since the Great Depression.
One camp thinks the financial and economic crises are so deeply rooted they will inevitably lead to another Great Depression purge.
Yet in an August 2012 National Bureau of Economic Research paper titled "The Great Leveraging, " University of Virginia economist Alan Taylor examined the 79 major financial crises in advanced economies over the past 140 years and found that they are just as likely in countries that rely on domestic savings and owe little to foreign creditors.
He did not go into any great detail, but the money would presumably be saved in some way and used to clean up after future crises.
应用推荐