This Time is Different
By Carmen M Reinhart &
Kenneth S Rogoff
Princeton University Press (2009)
I picked up this book because of its subtitle “Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” thinking it will shed light on why the world is currently embroiled in one financial disaster after another. On this I was disappointed.
The book contains data for 66 countries across the five continents covering eight centuries and this makes for some very dizzy reading. I’m no economist; so, much of the data didn’t have meaning for me.
Various types of crises are defined and covered in the book – inflation, currency crashes and debasement, banking crises and debt defaults. To me the unifying thread though all these crises is debt. An interesting case is that of independent Newfoundland which had to form a federation with Canada due to default – even democracy is subordinate to debt.
While it seems near impossible to predict a crisis, rising real estate prices seem to precede many a financial crisis.
This is not an easy read, but if you are into data – go for it.
