Re: Economic meltdowns in SF

<Mark_Reichert@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:eb4c2bf9-1c5d-46c9-a523-3afcb796aaa6@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>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.

    In 1957 Damon Knight wrote a novel called _A for Anything_.  Some 
never-explained alien power deposits matter duplicators across the world. 
Civilization swiftly evaporates; we see a gang boss driving through the 
streets rounding up people to be slaves.  The story then cuts to about a 
hundred years after that, when the world is a few bosses atop hordes of 
duplicated slaves.  (And has some dubious genetics; the great-grandfather
of 
the current boss in the story duplicated his wife.  So he, his son, his 
grandson, and his great-grandson all had children by essentially the same 
woman, or duplicates of her.  The latest copy would die after giving birth

to one son.  Now they obviously had a male streak going there, but how the

generations didn't pick up some lethal recessives along the way is another

question entirely.  And then too, I have no idea what would keep a Boss
from 
having a new Bosswife copied after the first one died, but  . . .)

    Someone named Ralph W. Sloane, writing as "Ralph Williams", produced a

story for _Astounding_ in 1958 ttiled "Business as Usual, During 
Alterations".  It has the same setup as the Knight story, but is set 
entirely in a department store.  Everyone who wants to come in and buy 
something gets a charge account set up if they don't already have one --  
presumably they'll be buying originals.  A clever joke involves what they 
sell to people who come in demanding to buy guns so they can carve out an 
empire amid the forthcoming chaos.  The store manager sells them
war-trophy 
Sten guns (modified so they won't fire, that is), and .380 ammunition,
which 
is the same caliber as the 9mm that the Sten fires, but with rounds
shorter 
than the 9mm, so they won't fire properly.

        Joseph T Major