I am a preparing a lecture, and am in need of material that demonstrates
the volatility of the economy. Meaning, despite the best efforts of
the Allan Greeenspan and the feds, we really don't have a clue to how
things do turn out and will turn out. One of my basic premises is,
that the ecomomy is kind of like the weather, if you study the
physical properties of this planet you can become appraised of some of
the forces that come to play, but at the end of the day,
meteorologists are only presenting a best guess, because there are too
many variables that are just unpredicatble.
What would assist me would be stories of unusual occurences that had a
dramtic impact on sectors of the economy. For instance if there is
some (reasonably attribuatle) cause to the Great Depression. Another
angle that would be helpful would be job sectors that came and went.
For instance if you grew up the 60's and went to engineering school,
you knew you had a secure future, and now? Or if you went into
computer programming in the early 90's....

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Request for Question Clarification by ragingacademic-ga on 02 Feb 2004 10:54 PST

barrys - thanks for submitting your question to our forum.  This is a
very interesting question and I will gladly research it, but we need
to do two things - first, will you please clarify what your
quantitative expectations are as regards the response you are seeking.
 Then, please consider if the price you have listed this question at
is reasonable given the time you would like to see a researcher
dedicate to replying to your question.

thanks,
ragingacademic

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Clarification of Question by barrys-ga on 02 Feb 2004 12:58 PST

My descrpition below is a pretty good definition of what I am looking
for. As far as extent, I am not really looking for a paper, or even an
extraordianary amount of data. Meaning, my real point is not to proove
that the ecomomy is volatile, I assume that. I am looking for examples
and illustrations to help make that point.

If you feel that this will take more time to research let me know what
you feel is an approriate dollar amount.

Thanks, 

Barry

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Clarification of Question by barrys-ga on 03 Feb 2004 08:27 PST

Please note the lecture, I am giving is on this Wednesday night. So
time is a little short, if you have any info. I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

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Request for Question Clarification by ragingacademic-ga on 03 Feb 2004 09:47 PST

barrys - my apologies, I will not be able to reply to this question
within the specifications presented - but hopefully another researcher
will pick this up soon.

thanks and good luck,
ragingacademic

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Clarification of Question by barrys-ga on 04 Feb 2004 02:05 PST

Let me clarify my objective. I am not an ecomonist, nor is this
lecture focused on detailed anyslys of the economy. This is a general
topic lecture, that i need some (prefereably annecdotal) material to
support a premise. That premise is that over the milenium, or over the
past 200 years, or even over the past century A. The entire ecomomy
has had huge peaks and valleys that no one could predict. B. Within
the ecomomy there have been sectors that had huge swings that no one
could predict.

So that, if I were to play odds maker, on the issue of whether one man
will or will not become rich, or even whether and entire segment of
the population would or would not become rich, the odds of my success
would be comparable to betting on the weather next month (or even next
week). Any help would be greatly appreiciated.

Thanks

People will often talk about volatility in the economy by looking at
swings in the stock market and interest rate volatility.

Since the central bank has started to manage the supply of cash in the
country in the late 70's by changing interest rates, the total
volatility has decreased.

Often economist and financiers use the capital asset pricing model
that uses the volatility as a measure of risk for measuring a single
stock's BETA against the market portfolio.

My advice would be to take a look at the market cap of the stock
market from finance.yahoo.com and graph that over time.  Then you
might try and take specific occurrences in the world that have driven
large swings in market capitalization.

Here is another good article for you.


http://econserv2.bess.tcd.ie/SER/1996/barret.htm

Let me restate my objective: I am looking for material, examples,
cases... that show over the course of history, how flaky the ecomomy
is. Much like Mrs. Olery's cow kicking over the latern, was named as
the cause of the Chicago fire, I am looking for incidents or events
that can directlly or indirectly be shown to relate to large changes
in the value of stocks, bonds, companies... This would only be one
example of what I am refering to. IF a certain event could not be
attributed to any known cause that in it and of itself is highly
telling.