FT interview with Carmen Reinhart, co-author of This Time is Different, about the crisis in Greece

This Time Is Different:
Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff

Joseph Count de Maistre once wrote of "history, which is empirical politics."  I find it makes for good empirical economics and finance as well.  Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have written a history of eight hundred years of financial crises.  I am remined of the Pete Seeger song, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"  The refrain is:

"When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?"

On May 5, 2010, Aline van Duyn, the Financial Times' U.S. Markets editor, interviewed Carmen Reinhart, co-author of This Time is Different.  In this first video, they talk about the history of financial crises and their patterns (4m 41sec).

Then the hangover

What happens after a crisis has happened?  In this second video, they talk about the aftermath of financial crises  (4m 55sec)  To my simple-minded ears, the consequences of financial crises sound awfully much like Austrian unemployment rather than Keynesian unemployment.  How heretical!

I Owe, I Owe, It's Off the Cliff We Go!

In this next video, the discussion turns to the role of debt and monetary policy. (3m 13sec) Maybe the economy hasn't read the textbooks?

Was it a Greek who said there was nothing new under the sun?

And then, in this last video, they turn to the crisis in Greece, and the possibility for contagion and restructuring .(4m 11sec) Note this was done over a year ago.