History may not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes closely enough that we fail to study it at our peril. Why? Well, we are animals and we haven't changed all that much in the short time during which our ancestors started to record their history.
John Kenneth Galbraith performed a tremendous service when he wrote The Great Crash 1929, and it may be instructive to consider the parallels between what he observed about the '29 crash and what we see today. This blog is dedicated to highlighting some of Mr. Galbraith's text and inviting comment, in the hope that useful inferences can be made as we address the causes and consequences of The Panic of 2008.
The Panic of 2008 is just the latest major societal challenge we will face in the lifetimes of most people alive today --- unemployment, environmental degradation, and climate change spring readily to mind. Can we learn something useful from it, and from earlier events like the Crash of '29, about how to better organize ourselves so as to defend our freedoms and improve prospects for those who will follow us?
All references in this blog are made to the Houghton Mifflin, 1997, softcover edition of Mr. Galbraith's 1954 classic.
Long after much of the self-aggrandizing business press of the current era has been pulped and recycled, Mr. Galbraith's classic will be standing the test of time, wry wit shining through.
Buy it or borrow it. Read it.
No comments:
Post a Comment