Re: Economic meltdowns in SF

On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:53:51 GMT, Bryan Derksen wrote:

> 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.
> 
> I recall reading a novella a long time ago called, IIRC, "Depression Or 
> Bust". It wasn't very science fictiony, and it was definitely meant a 
> bit tongue in cheek, but it had an economic collapse in America as one 
> of its two main threads. The other involved events in the Soviet Union 
> during the same period.
> 
> The American story-thread was basically a long description of the 
> economy just seizing up and grinding to a halt for no readily obvious 
> reason, with employment in a self-reinforcing downward spiral that 
> eventually leaves the entire country out of work. An economist with 
> Unconventional Ideas finally manages to get the ear of the president, 
> and convinces him that if they can just pinpoint the original cause of 
> the depression and reverse it the whole system can get rebooted again. 
> So they pour over the records in excruciating detail, and finally 
> pinpoint the one transaction that the economist thinks set it all off; 
> an ordinary guy needed to buy a washing machine but decided money was a 
> bit too tight and put it off. So the Treasury Department prints a 
> hundred dollar bill backed by the last few ounces of gold left in Fort 
> Knox, and the two remaining Secret Service members who haven't been laid

> off yet are sent down to deliver this one piece of currency with value 
> left in it to the guy so he can finally go and buy that washing machine.

> As predicted, that precision injection of cash into the system gets the 
> economic wheels turning again, in a chain reaction that spreads through 
> the country as people start spending again.

I remember reading a translation of this--except without the Soviet Union
part. I am pretty sure I read the translation after 1991, but of course it
might have dated from before.
-- 
Alexey Romanov