Re: Economic meltdowns in SF

In article <frmtbh$2p47$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
David Goldfarb <goldfarb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>
>In article
<eb4c2bf9-1c5d-46c9-a523-3afcb796aaa6@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> <Mark_Reichert@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>I know I should be avoiding reality here, but given the implications
>>of Bear Stearns if the other investment banks are just as ridiculously
>>leveraged, I was wondering what SF stories have which SF stories have
>>had economic bad times as background and which have actually dealt
>>with the economics as subject material.
>
>The planetary collapse in _A Deepness in the Sky_ springs instantly
>to mind, and I'm surprised nobody in the thread has mentioned it yet.
>
>_Gladiator-At-Law_, by Pohl and Kornbluth, also deals some with
>economic warfare.

Towards the end of Blish's "Cities In Flight" series, the economic system
used by the Okie cities blows up on them when their currency becomes
worthless.

A collapse is narrowly averted in one of Lyndon Hardy's "logical
magic" books.  maybe _Master of the 5 Magics_.  There is some kind
of unforgable currency which the bumbling protag suddenly renders
forgable.  Fortunately he somehow also inadvertently manages to
sink a huge cash store into a completely inaccessable location, and is a
quick enough thinker to proclaim that those coins (or whatever) are
still unforgable (they aren't), building a new economy on claims against
this untestable reserve..

				Ted
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