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Surely the Great Depression could never happen again. Or could it? One of the world's top economists gives us a sobering tour of the global economic crises of the last two years. Today, the terrible tragedy of the Great Depression looks gratuitous and unnecessary: Our economists and policy makers simply have gained too many tools, too much experience since then. It could never happen again. Or could it? Over the course of the last two years, six Asian economies have experienced an economic slump that bears an eerie resemblance to the Great Depression. Russia, once a military superpower but today an economic midget, defaulted on its debt in 1998, an event that, halfway around the world, drove Brazilian interest rates through the roof and terrified the US bond market. Some of the brightest financiers in the world, working for Long-Term Capital Corporation, thought they had the market licked only to find themselves in a jam that had all the makings of the over-leveraged positions that caused the 1929 stock market crash. Then, in January of 1999, it was Brazil's turn, with a financial crisis and currency devaluation that is still playing itself out. Paul Krugman, who "writes better than any economist since John Maynard Keynes" according to Fortune magazine, recounts these events and more: he points out that they raise significant questions for which economists may not have answers.