Archive for the ‘Depression series’ Category
Short story: Max Claus goes to New York
I have always wanted to do fiction, but never got around to complete my dreams. Except for a small science fiction that wrote in the college, I have never finished any of my fiction works. I have three novels in various stages but got into writers block every time. This time, I converted an unpublished novel into a short story and I was particular to release it today. Since it was converted in a hurry, I didnt do a lot of proofreading. If you like or hate the story, do send me a mail.
A Series on Depression – Tulip Mania of 16th Century Holland
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Though it is not exactly a Depression, it is one of the major economic bubbles in the modern history. It had all the elements of a bubble – frenzied people buying an asset in the hope that some other person will pay them higher than what they paid. At one point around 1637 it went so crazy that one Tulip bulb cost more than 12 acres of land and 20 years of a worker’s salary.
This crisis is interesting in that it hyper-inflated a very silly object (a flower) and well analyzed over the centuries and it has a special place in economic history given some of the innovations it brought like the futures contracts. As we will see later in the article, a lot of information about this crisis in the traditional media is more hype than truth and many modern researchers debunk the folklore comparing this crisis to major depressions. This crisis was confined mostly to a small duration around January-February 1637, and didn’t have a lot of serious effects on Dutch economy, contrary to what a lot of traders believe.
A Series on Depression – Introduction
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What do you normally expect in a recession? A “Grapes of Wrath” style dust bowls and people in rusted wagons shuttling all across the highways? People waiting in the soup lines and families going out of heat in the winter? People near the end of the world? Well, those are not the only pictures we will see.
Look at 1930s movies – how often do you find signs of depressions in it? In fact, some of the best and grandest of movies came during that period in every genre ranging from slapstick comedy to horror movies, romantic comedies, epics and serious social movies. By 1935, 50% of Americans owned automobile, the first of freeways came in (1939 – Pennsylvania turnpike) and concept of motels exploded 3 fold in a few years, as more Americans began to take vacation inspite of depression. They had fun by inventing so many past-times like Monopoly, miniature golf, swing dance, and reinvented activities like Jigsaw puzzle etc. Society held together and people won their crisis with hope. How did that happen?
A Series on Depression – Prologue
We might be getting close to a depression or atleast a deep recession. But, do we know what a depression means and how bad it is? In the next few months my plan is to take you through historical depressions worldwide, their causes and effects. I’m not going to wear a pink glass and say everything that is happening is going for good. I want to be realist and give you both sides of the coin – something that the traditional media lacks. There are both positives and negatives, and we keep an objective mind we can overcome any crisis is what history teaches us.
What is the series going to contain?
