The main reason to read The Great Depression Ahead is to see the most persuasive case that can be made for an extended economic decline in the United States and other developed countries. After understanding that case, you'll be in a better position to make decisions that will leave you better off regardless if the economy recovers quickly or keeps sliding down for several years (as it did in the early 1930s). Mr. Dent is better than most forecasters for this purpose because he provides lots of documentation for why he develops the scenario forecasts that he does.

What's the essence of the case he's making?

1. Developed countries are facing many years when there will be declining numbers of people in their peak spending years.

2. A multi-decade commodity price cycle is about to peak to be followed by lower prices.

3. The burst bubble in real estate will be with us for some time, and prices will fall further and longer than most people expect.

4. There are no new innovations waiting in the wings to drive economic growth forward.

He takes that scenario and develops investing, business, and personal financial planning solutions over the next century.

The essence of the advice is to play it safe for now by being in short-term Treasuries and to later switch into Treasury bonds after interest rates rise a lot (expecting that the bond prices will soar as the yields once again fall to near zero). If you can sell your house now, sell it and rent. If you can sell your business now, do it. Otherwise, play it safe, hunker down, and wait for competitors to disappear.

Economic forecasts are notoriously wrong. In fact, some forecasters "predict" the opposite of the consensus. Financial forecasts are even worse.

Mr. Dent is famous for vastly overestimating how much the stock market would climb in the 2000s period. In this book he explains what he missed (commodity and real estate inflation coupled with unsettled world conditions due to terrorism and the U.S. trying to stamp out terrorism is unlikely places like Iraq).

He repeats and updates all the graphs you saw in earlier books and adds some new ones. He has so many cycles that I wasn't quite sure how he puts them all together. He offers free updates on this book's forecasts via an address on his Web site.

I'm pretty pessimistic about the economy and the financial markets over the next 18 months, but I can see that Mr. Dent is much more pessimistic than I am. He wrote this book before the U.S. and other governments began spending over $10 trillion to prop up the economy. As we saw in the second quarter of 2008, the government can spend enough to prop up the economy for a few months. There seems to be a will by government leaders to spend another $10-20 trillion in this cause. Since you and I will pay the bill, I can see why they are enthusiastic. Otherwise, everyone will want to kick them out of office as the economy sags and stays down.

Don't take the book seriously. Learn from the assumptions, keep your eyes open, retain lots of cash in safe places, and look for terrific bargains.

When Harry Dent wrote 'Our Power to Predict' in the late 1980's and 'The Great Boom Ahead' in the early 90's - he made 18 specific, and highly controversial calls on what he saw coming in the next couple of decades. By my count, 16 of those have occurred already.

Since none of us have a crystal ball that ACTUALLY functions, no one can forecast news events. What Harry Dent has is an amazing track record of accurately predicting long-term trends. As world events have changed, he has changed his outlook and forecast based on new information as it emerges. That is much more valuable to me than someone who is determined to defend their original point of view because they once said it.

What I have gotten from Dent's research over the years is an understanding of what drives the economy, and what the likely outcome of predictable events may be. If you're looking for a soothsayer, go get your palms read. If you want to understand in basic terms how the economy works, and what dangers and opportunities are likely in coming years, I have seen no one better.

As far as predicting the last 2 years, the fundamental drivers he predicted (increasing consumer spending, peak in housing prices) did happen, unfortunately we saw multiple 6 sigma events this past year as a result of the subprime and hege fund fallout - NO ONE saw that coming. How do you predict something that's never supposed to happen?

I highly recommend this book if you want to a clear readable view of what drives markets and economies. If you're trying to time days to get in and out of the market, go to Motley Fool and check your brain at the door.

Great book.

I think this book has some merit as a macro discussion of the economy. As proven with the author's past books, his calls are quite a ways off of the mark. He attempts to give specific dates and stock market index values based on all types of historical cycles. In my opinion, he has a lot of good historical cycles to base his conclusions on but trying to be as specific as he is (as well as his track record in his other books) make this book little more than an interesting read.

I find it interesting but I am not putting too much weight in his "predictions". I read another Second Depression doom & gloom book by Brusse that I thought was a lot more realistic.

I find it peculiar that within days of the book coming out so many ignorant and scorn people have spent their valuable time writing useless reviews that say so little about this book, but so much about their character; where's the facts, quotes and references of when Harry Dent's team was always wrong? If a baseball player hits a homerun but barely clears the back wall, is his homerun any less of homerun than the player that hit a ball well over the wall, high into the stands? Obviously these Windbags haven't read any of Harry's books.

When it comes to economics I look toward pundits who are controversial. Too many people put Harry Dent in the day-to-day advisor category, which is not what Harry is or has ever been. Many critics incorrectly label Harry Dent's forecasts as inconceivable; nobody knows the future! Too many people focus on when Harry is wrong and not the many times he's been right. Personally I never held him to the letter of his word, e.g., the DOW breaking 30,000. Harry's humble and well researched ideas pose the reader with insightful questions and plausible theory.

To the prudent investor and saver Harry's research and questions are invaluable. I'm more prepared to take advantage of current and future market conditions because I believed in Harry's long-term forecasts which have a solid foundation based on Demographics and trends. History unequivocally repeats itself and Harry's team HELPS interpret the next repetitive cycle and adjust it for current times.

If you're buying this book looking for information that will give you a superior jump on a stock, or IPO, DON'T; buy some software and learn how to use it. If you want a basis to help you prosper in the coming years, read The Great Depression Ahead and other comparable authors like: Thomas J. Stanley, George S. Clason, Robert T. Kiyosaki, Barry Ritholtz, Addison Wiggins, Bill Bonner, Warren Brusse, Niall Ferguson, Michael Panzer, Malcolm Gladwell, as fast as you can; or just go stick your head in the sand, either way we are in for an exciting ride, ripe with opportunity.

At the time of writing this review I'm learning the new global perspective of spending waves which are influenced by migration, that Harry discusses beginning on page 137. Which American cities show promise? Read the book and find out. Why is this information important to a diligent investor? So the reader comprehends the ideas presented to them and understands why they invest where they invest.

I can't believe this guy is back again. Just recently, I happened to see "Roaring 2000s" still sitting in my bookcase, laughed hard, and threw it in the trash. I read it back in 1999 because it was on all the bestsellers list. Everyone was talking about the Y2K and was grasping for anything that will shine a light on what's to come. It was an interesting read, but most of his predictions did NOT come true. He said the technology of the 21st century is like the auto industry in the early 20th century, so invest in the internet and the technology now. I thank the starts I didn't have any money back then to follow his advice. Not that I expected all his predictions to come true, no one has a crystal ball. But, Harry Dent is way off. (Dow never reached 35,000 in 2008, not 25,000, not even 15,000.) He is brilliant at making money for sure- he seems know what people want to hear at the moment and writes a book about it with an eye-catching cover, after the trend had already begun. Then He exaggerates it to seem like he is ahead of the curve. Duh, US has been in recession for over a year by the time this book comes out.

Please do not reward someone who's feeding on your fear. If you read his previous books, you'd know that he built his wealth by selling books and not by investing.