A special note of thanks goes out to all of the contributors whose work has made the Smart Globalist what it is. Covering the international economy in this extraordinary period of crisis has revealed an amazing depth and breadth to the critical commentary. The responses the crisis has generated reflect an enormous range of opinion and perspective. From the standard ideological frames through the institutional views of academics, journalists, financial professionals, businesspeople and policy makers, no single analysis yet of the complex global economy seems to have quite captured the essence of the crisis we are living through. Perhaps we have to wait for the hindsight of history to be able to capture the zeitgeist of a particular period.

And yet, that there have been massive failures in both markets and public policies cannot be denied, and it is not too early to begin to draw lessons from the crisis and plot a path to recovery. The only thing that seems absolutely certain at this stage is that we have not resolved all the problems the global economy is facing. As J.P. Morgan put it long ago, the markets will fluctuate. We fear, though, that the road ahead will be a rocky one.

The critical lack of private sector demand the world over has yet to convincingly turn the corner, and deep structural issues like the global savings imbalances will mitigate against a robust recovery. Meanwhile, even as the historically loose fiscal and monetary policies deployed to mop up a debilitated financial sector and cushion falling demand have averted catastrophe, long term exit strategies remain opaque.

Economic dislocation often triggers a political backlash, and we are now only seeing the beginnings of the political implications of the global recession. In the U.S., the partisan rancor has only intensified since the end of the election last year; in Japan, the dominant party of the post-war era has just been voted out of office; in Europe, the future course of the EU and especially the Eurozone, are still in the midst of the first significant challenge these institutions have faced; and in international affairs, the first rumblings of trade conflicts might have been heard in the imposition of new tariffs by the U.S. and China this week.

Of course, crisis brings with it opportunity. Those hoping to reform our markets and institutions to prevent a repeat of financial and economic crisis could yet succeed. This is not the 1930s, and the actions of Ben Bernanke and central bankers around the world stand in stark contrast to their predecessors during the Great Depression. Hopefully some of the critical content and advice that have been featured on these pages will find the ear of policy makers...

Many of the authors whose work has appeared or been linked to on these pages have made substantial contributions to our understanding of the origins, consequences and solutions to this recession, and a few deserve special mention:

Simon Johnson of the Baseline Scenario, Barry Ritholtz of the Big Picture, Martin Wolf and Willem Buiter of the FT, Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism, Steve Waldman of Interfluidity, and John Hempton of Bronte Capital have been resolute in their critiques of the financial sector and astonishingly productive in their output; Michael Pettis of China Financial Markets has provided unparalleled insight into the Chinese economy; James Hamilton of Econbrowser has shed light on the role of commodities and especially oil; Mark Thoma of Economists View, Dani Rodrik of his eponymous blog, David Altig of the Atlanta Fed, Paul Krugman of the NYTimes and the gang at VoxEU have kept us abreast of some of the latest academic and policy debates; Clyde Prestowitz of ESI has highlighted the disfunction in our international trade regime; and finally, Nouriel Roubini of RGE Monitor and Brad Setser, formerly of CFR, provided early warning of the coming crisis. Brad Setser has now taken his expertise on global imbalances with him into the Obama Administration, we wish him the best of luck in sorting everything out.

The internet has nurtured and amplified this outpouring of critical content by lowering the costs of publication and syndication to such an extent that whole new classes of analysts and writers have leapt over the barriers of entry to contribute their two cents to the public discourse. New blogs, webzines, journals, multimedia sites and newly available international publications have proliferated in the 21^st century ether.

The Smart Globalist has in large part been an attempt to assemble, highlight and add to the best of this commentary and analysis. But while electronic content can be cheaper to publish than the printed word, it isnt free. It takes both money and especially time to produce a high-quality product. In its current incarnation, the Smart Globalist has exhausted its resources and run its course. But look for us to pop up again somewhere in the future as new opportunities arise.

The Smart Globalist would like to thank the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for their generous financial support and encouragement. The Sloan Foundation is a great resource for academics and non-profits and has sponsored a huge amount of research in the social sciences.

The Economic Strategy Institute will continue its efforts to study advocate for a sustainable global economy, and interested readers should check the Institutes website for ongoing coverage and analysis of current economic events. ESI is planning to publish a new series of interviews with key players in the global economy under the rubric Global Dialogue. It promises to be a good read and an important forum for fleshing out the policy responses to the challenges of the 21^st century global economy.

Thanks,

Ben Carliner