This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Excerpt)

As much as you may think otherwise, the global economic crisis of the past two years is not exactly without precedent. Indeed, it’s a fact of life that occurs with regularity across tens of countries and five continents throughout hundreds of years. So argue economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff in their new book. Asset bubbles, cockamamie valuation metrics, government defaults, banking...