Has depression economics returned?

Abstract The purpose of this article is to characterize the current Brazilian economic situation and outline a prescription for its recovery. Brazil currently encapsulates the main characteristics of the depressions of the 1870s and 1930s. During these events, there was a sharp fall in output, a high unemployment rate and prolonged insufficiency of demand. Brazil faces a depression and not a transitory recession. The diagnosis and the prescription for economic recovery were elaborated from the ideas and experience of J.M. Keynes during the 1930s.