> All economy is fragile because it is based on perception. There are several ways of looking at it. Rather than "based on perception" I prefer "based on rel

> All economy is fragile because it is based on perception. There are several ways of looking at it. Rather than "based on perception" I prefer "based on relationships" The economy is a network of relationships concerning material goods and services (is one definition). One of the mistakes a lot of dry economists make is to forget that. As Maggie (in)famously said: "There is no such thing as society there, are just individuals". Wrong This was illustrated in the Asian Financial Crises in the late '90s. Thailand and Malaysia were badly effected. Thailand, that has hardly been colonised, did better than Malaysia (according to Joe Stiglitz) because the ancient communal ties still existed and people, hence the economy, could fall back on them when the money system collapsed. In Malaysia those ties had been broken by colonisation and there was more misery.