Since a collapse in house prices is generally seen as an economic catastrophe, monetary policy tends to be geared to the condition of the housing market.
He is the author of The Death of Democracy: Greece and the American Conscience, Monetary Theory, Capitalism and Catastrophe: A Critical Appraisal of the Limits of Capitalism, The Political Economy of Reaganomics: A Critique, and numerous articles and reviews.
And last year, during the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, Jubilee (and others) pushed successfully to have the International Monetary Fund (IMF) establish a "Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust" (CCR), which provides relief to poor countries after a natural disaster or health crisis.
Finance ministers have called a meeting for Tuesday as they try to avoid what Olli Rehn, the European economic and monetary affairs commissioner, called a "Lehman Brothers catastrophe on European soil".
Nobel laureates in economics predicted imminent catastrophe for Malaysia; the International Monetary Fund effectively told Mohamad off.
Flawed monetary policies are turning a crisis into a catastrophe.
The possibility the government could default on its debt raised fears of potential global economic catastrophe, with foreign creditors and the International Monetary Fund's chief economist warning of the potential consequences.
And the question asked by any visitor was also being asked by Icelanders themselves: When a wealthy, First World country — publicly funded medicine, private jets, evenings of chamber music — experiences a catastrophe that shocks its neighbors and brings the International Monetary Fund to its aid, what happens next?
Yes, it is difficult to grasp how fundamentally our monetary system needs to change in order to avert economic and environmental catastrophe.
Lagarde now leads the International Monetary Fund, which exists, in large part, to help countries survive such catastrophes.
And, at the time, he was head of the International Monetary Fund and had other things to do, such as "saving the world from catastrophe".
