The Greater Depression

"Let me cover the big picture. I do think we're approaching the end of the world as we know it…I think there is such thing as the business cycle. It exists. And we've had the longest expansion - and the strongest expansion - in the world history. But we're at the end of a 25-year boom. It's gone on more than a full generation now. And I'll tell you how it's going to end: It's going to end with a depression, and not just a depression; not just another Great Depression; it's going to be the Greater Depression

What's a depression, incidentally? It's a period of time when distortions and misallocations of capital are liquidated; that's called a depression. Over the last 25 years, distortions and misallocations of capital have produced an artificial boom. But when these distortions and misallocations of capital are liquidated, we'll get a depression.

Another general definition of a depression is this: a period of time when most people's standard of living goes down significantly. Now, for the long run, there's no question in my mind the standard of living of everybody on earth is going to go up immensely over the next hundred years. Immensely. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to have setbacks, and I think we're looking at one: A severe standard of living drop. So the economic picture is not going to be good…"

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