Saturday, August 6, 2011

Mary Poppins moments

The above photographs were taken on a walk at Pirttimäki, eating blueberries and wild raspberries. They were still good, although not as good as a week ago. Summer goes on.

Next week I'm no longer on a vacation; work calls. Thus I have been pondering some more serious matters, such as what is happening in the world finances.

The children watched today the Mary Poppins movie. Strange that I hadn't watched the movie or read the story until recently. But now that I have, I like it a lot.

When you realize what is happening in Europe and in the USA, Mary Poppins (and especially the banking scene) is delightful to think about. (By the way, there is a recent new translation of Mary Poppins into Finnish. I wrote a short review of the book, in Finnish.)

Speaking about global finances, I read some months ago two books on the subject. Raghuram G. Rajan's excellent (and prize-winning) book Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy (Princeton University Press, 2010) dissects the financial crisis of 2008, and is very topical also today. (I wrote a review, in Finnish.)

The other valuable book to me was Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money. A Financial History of the World, which has been translated into Finnish (see my review). This book is targeted more at the general audience than Rajan's book, and is an excellent introduction to world finances - and especially the recurring theme of financial collapse.

We are living in interesting times. Well, the times are interesting, but are we really living?

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