This is a very incisive summary of the current economic crisis. Oh, if only Krug or Robert Reich were in the Cabinet!

It's hard for me to summarize Krugman's already tight lines of reasoning even further, but here goes.

-The major trend of economic policy of the past thirty years, from Reaganomics to the Bush tax cuts, has been a catastrophe.
-The present hesitance of both borrowers and creditors, leads to decreased demand.
-The deregulation of the financial markets, most notably Glass-Steagall, has been a catastrophe.
-The fiscal policies which have been reinstated since the 1980s have had a similar effect to those of Gilded Age America, and allowed a new generation of plutocrats to influence policy through think-tanks and lobbying of politicians.
-Austerity, as seen in Europe, is a major mistake. Many of the disaffected youth who are only barely surviving because of welfare will be forced under far worse conditions if their lifelines run out.
-A review and revision of Keynesian economics, including the effects of spending as a multiplier, how governments can survive with debt, inflation, etc.
-Bad economic times can lead to political extremism - see Weimar Germany, Hitler.

What does he advocate? A newer, stronger, stimulus, one which provided the early recovery of 2009-10, but with better applications and stronger backing, in addition to a last gasp of unemployment insurance.

See the New Deal, and compare that to Hoover. See the multiple economic crises of the Gilded Age of the 19th century.

There are a few nitpicks - his ideas on structural unemployment, and the role of technology in vastly altering the economy, particularly.

This is a book clearly and emphatically written, with the hope that it will spread and affect the policies of this new election season and beyond. I only beg that it does.