Its Not Me, Its You: the Crisis

A couple of interesting NBER papers have recently offered interesting historical perspectives on the financial crisis. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth S Rogoff have written "This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises". These authors state that a recent example of the "this time is different" syndrome is the false belief that domestic debt is a novel feature of the modern financial landscape. Michael David Bordo offers a slightly different perspective in "An Historical Perspective on the Crisis of 2007-2008". He suggests that the current crisis has many similarities to those of the past but also some important modern twists.