Adam Tooze, author of “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World,” teaches history at Columbia University.
In trying to gauge the coronavirus crisis, we are all struggling for historical reference points. Which is the historical example to choose?
The turmoil in the financial markets and the talk of bailouts reminds us of 2008. But though the shock comes at the end of a long economic upswing, it is not organically related to that long period of growth. Some overstretched businesses are getting their comeuppance, no doubt. But even the airlines, the firms everyone loves to hate, are not to blame.
