Economics

In this article, Paul Samuelson, the noted economist, says that 2008 was the year when we realized how much we didn't know about how the economy actually works. He makes several gripping points:

- we learned, through the debacle of sub-prime mortgages, that the financial market's ability to slice and dice financial instruments meant that the contagion of these toxic assets was allowed to pollute the groundwater of the economy - and that many, many people had the basic attitude that if they didn't know what was in the financial stew, they weren't going to taste it, just to see. Unfortunately, they learned that caution the hard way.

- we learned that nonliquid assets are not equivalent to immediately liquid assets, even when the valuation of the nonliquids was many multiples of the liquids. You can't spend your house. People learned that the hard way, too. Some are still learning.

- we learned that interconnected economies are like ganglia: you can't assume an easy or quick disconnect, one from the other. Like blood-supply-seeking cancer cells, they will seek ways to reconnect, and to maintain those connections, even during periods of adversity.

Its all obvious, now. I'll bet you that in five years, it'll be regarded as stodgy and not the way the smart people see the world.