A new book by billionaire investor George Soros warns that the U.S. is suffering the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression — and the Bush administration is in the dark about how to deal with it.

In “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means,” Soros — a major contributor to liberal causes — observes:

“The United States is facing both a recession and a flight from the dollar. The decline in housing prices, the weight of accumulated household debt, and the losses and uncertainties in the banking system threaten to push the economy into a self-reinforcing decline…

“We are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.”

Measures to combat the financial decline increase the supply of dollars, while “at the same time, the flight from the dollar has set up inflationary pressures through higher energy, commodity, and food prices,” Soros writes.

Soros also notes that the European Central Bank’s reluctance to lower interest rates is putting upward pressure on the euro, and changes in the economy in China will “increase prices at Wal-Mart and put additional pressure on the already beleaguered U.S. consumer.

“Unfortunately this administration shows no understanding of the predicament in which it finds itself.”

Soros’ book is available only as an e-book, but a print edition published by PublicAffairs will go on sale on May 19.