Bad News

A picture is worth a thousand words, and one of the most informative pictures is the Kindleberger Spiral, which shows the collapse of world trade that made the Depression Great. The picture first appeared in his great book, The World in Depression.

The reason for posting this now is an article by Floyd Norris about the decline of world trade in the NYTimes. The big fear is that countries will respond to declines in their exports with protectionist policies. This is how the spiral starts. We don't want to see where it ends.