<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>But what if the world we’ve been living in for the past five years is the new normal? What if depression-like conditions are on track to persist, not for another year or two, but for decades?</b></span><div><span style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By </span><span itemprop="author creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemid="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by PAUL KRUGMAN" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none;"><span itemprop="name">PAUL KRUGMAN</span></a></span></div><div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/opinion/krugman-a-permanent-slump.html?_r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/opinion/krugman-a-permanent-slump.html?_r=0</a></div></body></html>