By Ben Cohen

Confused by the economic crisis? Don't know what a credit default swap is, or a derivative? Paul Krugman explains How we got into this mess, why we could have avoided it, and how to get out of it:

I'm tempted to say that the crisis is like nothing we've ever seen

before, but it might be more accurate to say that it's like everything

we've seen before, all at once: a bursting real estate bubble

comparable to what happened in Japan at the end of the 80s; a wave of

bank runs comparable to those of the early 30s; a liquidity trap in the

US, again reminiscent of Japan; and, most recently, a disruption of

international capital flows and a wave of currency crises all too

reminiscent of what happened to Asia in the late 90s.