Financial Whirlpools

Chapter 3

Where Can I Buy One? Humans and the Economy

We will never really understand important economic events unless we confront the fact that their causes are largely mental in nature… the current crisis… was caused precisely by our changing confidence, temptations, envy, resentment, and illusion—and especially by changing stories about the nature of the economy.

Akerlof and Shiller¹

In the late 1980s, the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced the Borg. These part human, part artificial beings are implanted with bio-chips that link their brains to a collective consciousness.² With thousands of voices in their heads, they are always aware of one another’s thoughts and do not need to communicate directly; they just know what ...