The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Crash That Follows the Greatest Boom in History

Dent, former strategic consultant at Bain & Company, outlines the features of what he predicts will be the next Great Depression. The author argues that “demographic trends were the greatest drivers of our economy, along with radical new technologies,” working together to follow “a four-stage life cycle of innovation, growth, shakeout, and maturity.” While Dent's doomsday predictions are depressing, his theories are persuasive and elaborated in meticulous descriptions of historic economic trends and cycles. The author's candor is refreshing, especially when he discusses how equity investments “experience a wide variety of returns, including substantial losses or extraordinary gains“—and that the financial press has failed to remind the public of this fact. The book offers welcome portfolio allocation strategies during an economic crisis, as well as the bad news that the worst of the housing downturn “will occur between 2010 and 2013.” Along with domestic forecasts, Dent addresses terrorism's economic roots and the growth of megacities in South and East Asia with characteristic thoroughness. (Jan.)