Boom Bust Boom

The worldwide financial meltdown of 2007-08 might seem an unlikely subject for a Monty Python treatment, but Terry Jones—a founding member of the famed British troupe—here delivers a wittily instructive primer that situates the disaster snugly within the framework of the boom-and-bust cycles characteristic of a capitalist economy. The basic argument is that capitalism encourages episodes of irrational euphoria about profiting from a particular type of investment—leading to “bubbles” that prevent people from recognizing the risks…until the market collapses, which causes a crisis. The bursting of the housing bubble in 2008 was, Jones points out, just the latest example—mirroring such earlier events as the tulip mania in 1630s Amsterdam and the South Sea scam during the early 18th century in which Sir Isaac Newton lost a bundle. Jones includes numerous excerpts from interviews with economists such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman—as well as the archival words of John Kenneth Galbraith—to help make the overall point (singling out the “forgotten” Hyman Minsky for his dictum that apparent stability breeds instability), but he also indicts the discipline of economics itself for failing to predict such catastrophes due to a preference for ideologically-based models over real-world analyses (ruefully identifying Alan Greenspan as a prime culprit). What sets Boom Bust Boom apart from similar documentaries, however, is its style: while Jones provides plenty of thought-provoking material, he serves it up with the same mixture of puppetry, goofy animation, and satirical songs that he brought to Monty Python. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)