John Lanchester on 'Whoops!'

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John Lanchester on 'Whoops!'

04 Feb 2010

Speakers: John Lanchester

John Lanchester explores the credit crunch and explains why it is interesting as a human phenomenon. He describes the accessibility of economics and how his book Whoops! (2010) aims to address this by increasing 'financial literacy'. Lanchester goes on to explore the history of Western progress from the Cold War to the War on Terror and how this correlates with economic developments. Lanchester believes we are hard-wired to make economic mistakes because we make assumptions of rational conduct that do not always pay off – literally. He turns to economic events that have defied mathematical models, concluding that these models, the models our economies are based on, are wrong.