Dani Rodrik has published what I can only desribe as a chilling layout of the path to the 2nd Great Depression, titled “The End of the World as we Know it.”    What chills is that Rodrik doesn’t require any great changes in the current path to get there; just the unfolding of events as we have seen them in the last few years.

He makes it clear that just as we look back at the great Depression, and see that leaders, approaching the edge of economic collapse after a fiscal crisis, clung to the gold standard and self-defeating tarriff policies and so pushed their countries over the edge, so in the future people will look back at the 2nd great depression and see that leaders, approaching the edge of economic collapse after a fisal crisis, clung to the Euro and self-defeating austerity policies and so pushed their countries over the edge.