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This article, which was sent to Opalesque today, was authored by PIMCO’s CEO Mohamed El-Erian and originally published in Newsweek.com on 17 January 2009 and the magazine dated 26 January 2009.

On Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama inherits an economic calamity, and the situation will get worse in the first few months of his presidency regardless of what he does. How quickly it improves thereafter is not just a matter of which policies he decides to pursue; importantly, it is also a function of how he pursues them. Investors need to pay close attention lest they experience yet another challenging and, in some cases, devastating year.

No one should doubt that we are still in the midst of a historic economic crisis. Having incurred massive losses, individuals and companies around the world are, not surprisingly, saving more—some by choice as they attempt to restore balance to their finances and others by necessity as their credit lines are cut by beleaguered lenders. As detailed elsewhere in this edition of NEWSWEEK, the world has entered an Age of Thrift. Less spending by individuals will mean even lower demand, and the production of goods and services will be cut, again.

The latest economic data vividly illustrate the self-fulfilling nature of this global phenomenon. The numbers are horrifying, and increasingly so. There's been a violent collapse in industrial production in Europe; the latest monthly data now show annual contractions of 1......................

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