Animal Behavior Desk Reference Book

I just finished reading "The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008" by Paul Krugman, recipient of the 2008 Noble Prize in Economics. Great read. This book, given as a gift to me by my step-mother for xmas, turned out to be a real gem. Putting it all into perspective, I believe I have a better understanding of how complex economies of scale seemingly always return into major depressions for some time, even despite vast regulations meant to compensate for sharp short-term fluctuations.

In the book, we revisit the crises of mid-90's Mexico (aka. The Tequila Crisis), 97-98 Asian markets, 2000 US market, 2002 Argentina crash, and the recent 2007/8 US and world market collapse. Most of these crashes can be attributed to situations where the markets distance themselves too far from market fundamentals. Unregulated activity and financial loopholes allow some speculators to take advantage of many situations. In the case of Britain in 1992, George Soros was able to net a cool 1 Billion dollars in a short amount of time, merely by provoking the GBP to deflate. I knew this story in passing already, but the book has the gritty details of what made this possible.

Additionally, I learned more about the IMF, and how the US utilizes them to bail out flaky third-world economies to ensure that they don't fall into complete disarray, thus perhaps ensuring their dependence on the US even further, and thus perhaps even enslaving them to our superiority. Hrmmm, chew on that :-)

In conclusion, I now recognize the gravity of the crises we are currently in. If the book is correct, our markets are in for much more damage in the coming months. Be prepared! Also, we probably won't find our way out of this official depression until 2010, judging by the data presented. We will also likely see a stimulus on the order of 4% of US GDP at least. Much of this, the author claims, would be wise to place into infrastructure revitalization, since this slump will probably be longer lived than most, thus ensuring longer term projects are more formidable. Interesting stuff. Let's see what happens!!

Cheers and happy new year...