away from high levels of private and public sector debt will most likely be prolonged. It will certainly be painful. About Simon Johnson Simon Johnson, who served as chief economist at the International Monetary Fund in 2007 and 2008, is a professor of entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. Bloomberg moderates all comments. Comments that are abusive or off-topic will not be posted to the site. Excessively long comments may be moderated as well. Bloomberg cannot facilitate requests to remove comments or explain individual moderation decisions.