A lot of people have compared the boom and bust of the last few years to a bad hangover following a period of drunken excess.We have certainly had quite a lot of "jaysus did I really do that" stories about the Irish boom. It is interesting to see how the IMF blog starts its post on preventing future crises - “Never again can we let ourselves be caught unprepared by an economic and financial crisis of such global magnitude.” - "Never again" certainly does have echoes of hungover thinking. I wonder what the macroeconomic equivalent is of wolving down a breakfast roll, a bottle of coke and a few painkillers.
Never had that particular breakfast. But isn't the evidence that this time is not different. So we can confidently look forward to more financial crises?
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the macroeconomic equivalent is of wolving down a breakfast roll, a bottle of coke and a few painkillers.
ReplyDeletePresumably 0.5% interest rates and a couple of trillion of QE?
Not that I'd argue against that prescription - the painkillers may be the only way to avoid losing twice as many productive hours to the hangover as you enjoyed during the party.
Well this time is different to anything since the Great Depression i.e. it is worse. But however, it is (not yet, or perhaps even) as bad as the Great Depression. So perhaps "now" could be called unique?
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