The Crisis Behind the Crisis: In Search of New Model of Democracy

More than four years into the Great Recession of 2008, despite improved unemployment rates (though still at historic highs near 8 %) and the reelection of President Barack Obama, the recovery lags badly and the economy totters on the edge of collapsing anew. Painful austerity measures in Europe, contemplated Chinese economic retrenchment, and the possibility of either plunging over a seemingly ever-present “fiscal cliff” of drastic automatic budget cuts or locking into a debt-reduction deal that could stall even the weak recovery, threaten economic destimulations that could drag the world economy back into the vicious cycle of debt and dampened demand that could mean widespread and longlasting economic pain for people around the worl