In “Ponzi Planet: The Danger Debt Poses to the Western World,” German economist Alexander Jung looks at the rate of governmental borrowing and the refinancing of old debt in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008–09. In particular, he suggests that the rate of borrowing is threatening governments in advanced economies worldwide, not least because these governments are incurring new debts to pay down old ones. He suggests that, like the early twentieth-century fraudster Carlo Ponzi, the modern debt economy is “borrowing from Peter to pay Paul,” and this practice has created an unsustainable condition.