A Brief History of Doom

by Richard Vague

  Beyond this, I was guided by the great work of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, which is superbly led by its executive director, Robert Johnson, along with former chair Lord Adair Turner, who also happens to be one of the important voices on the subject of private debt.

  My longest-standing adviser on economic matters is Sherle Schwenninger, who, among his many other duties, is executive director of the Private Debt Project. Sherle was the one I turned to if I needed the straight story or an unvarnished answer to a complex economic question. He also led the effort to assemble the readers noted below.

  A number of key individuals agreed to read and comment on my manuscript at a point when it was still in very rough shape. They gave me feedback that transformed the work and corrected any number of errors. These readers were Moritz Schularick, Steve Keen, Matthew Baron, Patrick Lawrence, David Gerson, François-René Burnod, Nicholas Mulder, and Joerg Bibow. I can only shudder when I think how much worse the book would have been without their input. Moritz’s work on the data in this field has been foundational. Much of what we have done would simply not have been possible without his groundbreaking efforts. Steve is an iconoclast who so presciently called the 2008 crisis; he has consistently confronted the misguided orthodoxy in his field. Matthew is a rising star whose work on reconstructing historical stock market data has been both important and inspiring, and whose helpfulness and fairness mask his intellectual daring. Joerg provided invaluable help on my first book, and he did so again here. Nicholas, Patrick, and François-René are more recent acquaintances whose insights advanced my learning considerably. David provided a boost at just the point I needed it most.

  Certain institutions play an indispensable role in collecting and maintaining key economic data, as well as providing research leadership. Since our efforts have shown that key data have not always been maintained, even in fairly recent decades, we are particularly grateful to the following: the Federal Reserve, including the extraordinary Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis; the Bank of International Settlement; the International Monetary Fund; the World Bank; the United Nations Statistics Division; and the Bank of England. I would also like to thank Ray Boshara, William R. Emmons, and Lowell R. Ricketts of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s Center for Household Financial Stability for their leadership on issues relating to consumer debt.

  Thanks to all my many friends near and far, but especially to Paul McGlasson, who read many a draft and provided ongoing encouragement, and to Kevin Kleinschmidt and Steve Clemons, who have been my partners in so many endeavors and a constant source of support.

  Thanks too to my mom, sister Joanna, and brothers David and Steven. And a special thanks to my dear and recently departed dad who gave me my love of history.

  Finally and most important, I wish to thank my amazing, wonderful, and beloved wife, Laura, who along with our family, Lauren, Victoria, Sophia, Eric, Davis, and Mikael, together formed a bedrock of love, tolerance, and encouragement.