Did Board Games Cause the Financial Meltdown?
Posted on June 18, 2009 at 8:00 am
The Big Money has an interesting — and thought-provoking — slide show suggesting that the roots of the financial crisis come from the lessons we learned as children playing board games. Just look at these directions from Monopoly:
Monopoly has taught us that financial institutions are invincible. The game’s banker cannot go bankrupt, according to the rules: “The Bank never ‘goes broke.’ If the Bank runs out of money, the Banker may issue as much as needed by writing on any ordinary paper.
“The Game of Life” and “Payday” encourage players to buy houses even without money and make deals with or without money and “Risk” encourages them to conquer the world. Fantasy? Well, so were the high-tech and subprime derivative bubbles. I know they are joking here, but it does make me wonder what kinds of games we should create to teach today’s children to be more careful?
