We would like to present today  This Time is different from  Carmen M.Reinhart and Keneth S.Rogoff . They have catalogued over 250 financial crises in 66 countries over 800 years and then analyzed them for differences and similarities.

The book gives evidence that we have a lot of pain to experience because of the bad choices we have made. This is the entire developed world, and the emerging world will suffer, too, as we go through it. It is not a matter of pain or no pain. There is no way to avoid it. It is simply a matter of when and over how long a period.

In fact, Reinhart and Rogoff’s research suggests that the longer we try to put off the pain, the worse the total pain will be. We have simply overleveraged ourselves, and the deleveraging process is not fun, whether on a personal or a country basis.

And they say :

“But highly leveraged economies, particularly those in which continual rollover of short-term debt is sustained only by confidence in relatively illiquid underlying assets, seldom survive forever, particularly if leverage continues to grow unchecked.”

“This time may seem different, but all too often a deeper look shows it is not. Encouragingly, history does point to warning signs that policy makers can look at to assess risk – if only they do not become too drunk with their credit bubble – fueled success and say, as their predecessors have for centuries, “This time is different.”

Well, well, we have never believed that this time was different , and for sure, we advocate that this time it will take a lot of time, effort and courage  to navigate  through these turbulent times…