Commentary

How would you want to be buried? This is the question I put to a friend. Despite his outspokenness on many issues, a question on death and burial triggered a gaunt look on his face like he was contemplating the end of the world.

Four times in the past century, a large chunk of the industrial world has fallen into deep and long depressions characterized by persistent high unemployment: the United States in the 1930’s, industrialized Western Europe in the 1930’s, Western Europe again in the 1980’s, and Japan in the 1990’s.