The Crash of the Millennium: Surviving the Coming Inflationary Depression

by Ravi Batra

Book Overview

It's remarkable how often the predictions of economics professor Ravi Batra have proven prescient. Years in advance he predicted the rise of fundamentalism in Iran, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the decline of communism, the stock market crash of 1987, and the September market slump of 1998. The one time Batra seemed to get it wrong was with the prediction of his best-selling book, The Great Depression of 1990. As it turned out, that depression was...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609605127
• ISBN13: 9780609605127
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Harmony
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

The Crash of the Millennium and PROUT

This book was one of two recommended by Dr. Ravi Batra to give introductory and background info to help appreciate and understand the PROUT (Progressive Utility Theory)as further presented in "After Capitalism". It is well written and enables understanding of what has been going on in the World under the misleading title: "Free Market Democracy". Citizens of the world should read these books and put their lessons into practice before it is too late.

Sharp is the visitor's eye

Anyone faulting Ravi Batra for occasional failed or half-failed predictions, should give him his due. Here is a man that correctly called:--the collapse of Soviet Communism (in 1978) , --the rise of the stock market bubble (in 1984) , --the drop in inflation in the 1990s (in 1983) , --the start of Iran-Iraq war in 1980 (1979) , --the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1987 (1979) , --the US banking crisis of 1990 (1985) , --the Japanese stock market crash in 1990 (1985)He has also called for (repeatedly, but without luck) --US stock market crash , --global economic depression , --collapse of Capitalism (age of aquisitors) , --a coming golden age, lead by a class of warriors , --the re-mergence of inflation ,I would think, someone making these calls should be taken seriously, even if the timing is difficult. There are so many changes that have occurred in the world in the past few decades that could have postponed these developments. These could include:(i) virtually unlimited domestic bank insurance , (ii) responsive and efficacious macropolicies , (iii) structural shifts in the global economy , (iv) the present international monetary , system, with its ample 'fiat' money liquidity, (v) the morally hazardous practice of governments and the IMF bailing out large investors when their bets in risky international markets go wrong .All these things have surely played a role in bringing about and extending the present but fragile world prosperity. I say fragile, because stock markets are still at exorbitant levels (lest we forget), while interest rates are moving up -- a truly lethal combination.Moreover, based on the interesting cyclical theory of history that Batra works off, I believe history is still playing out, and we have not reached some permanent plateau of social development -- an end to history -- as Francis Fukyama suggests in "The End of History".To put things in perspective. Ravi Batra came to the west as a wide-eyed young man from India in the mid 1960s. There is a saying that "Sharp is the visitor's eye". Fortunately, he also had a good brain behind those seeing eyes. I, for one, appreciate the work of this brillian writer and visionary. For anyone with an open mind to these weighty issues above, I recommend his works enthusiastically and unreservedly.

Batra predicts stock market crash and inflation..

This book is scary. Ordinarily this would be, because the author predicts tough times ahead. However, the real scary part is that he "cried wolf" before and now many are likely to turn a deaf ear to a real warning. This book deonstrates that capitalism is at a cross-roads. The share price euphoria in the US has been achieved through exceptional factors that are in the process of being reversed. The massive foreign lending to the US of the past two decades is rapidly coming to an end. Oil prices have jumped from their lows. The dollar is in a slow motion fall which will raise the price of imports. These factors will lead to higher interest rates and then the curtains will come down on the roaring 90s (or early 00s) in a big way. No one will be left untouched by the ensuing calamaity. If you think the stock market is only headed higher, never mind....

Ravi Batra is the best writer on economics, ever.

Ravi Batra writes with the kind of ease and clarity that most economists can only dream of. While Robert Heilbroner is also a brilliant writer in this field, with his deep sociological insights, no one can match Batra's deeper social science insights still. His is the world of a thinker posessed with a spirit and view of life that transcends time, place and person, but is at home in the here and now. He grasps the inner meaning of complex processes rooted in human nature and makes them clear to the reader. Those type of insights are usually absent in the works of the run of the mill specialists. For instance, the well known mainstream economist, Paul Krugman, professes an oversight of his field. But, sorry to say, he falls victim to the details of the superfical analytical trivia he seeks to explain. Because he writes to history, Batra's books have a life that will keep them fresh, long after the hardnosed mathematical proofs of modern economic rectitude, and their interpreters, are shriveled piles of dust. Ravi Batra is not only a superb economist, but a veritable mystic. There has never been his like, and there probably never will. His genius recalls the likes of Thorstein Veblen and Joseph Schumpeter, economist-writers earlier this century, who also wrote best sellers that stirred at the foundations of their discipline. This book is for people who want a new understanding of the economy they inhabit, as living, breathing people, and what the future may hold. It is full of the unexpected. If Batra is right, there may be difficulties ahead. But just over the horizon awaits a good future indeed, and very different from what the unimaginative linear minds project. His is, by far, the more profound and meaningful understanding of the human historical process, and where it is taking us. Although in a group of books listed as a must read, it is superbly enjoyable from start to finish.

THE TIMING COULDN'T BE BETTER!

A VERY REMARKABLE BOOK. IT EMPHASISES THE LAW OF BALANCE AS THE HIGHEST LAW THERE IS. THAT ALL ASPECTS OF HUMAN ENDEAVORS ARE ULTIMATELY INTERCONNECTED, CREATING A SUPER DYNAMIC SYSTEM. IT'S CONCLUSIONS ARE DERIVED FROM THE FACT THAT WE CAN NOT DEFY ECONOMIC LAWS FOR EVER. YOU CAN NOT HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT, TOO. YOU CAN NOT HAVE MONEY AND HAVE IT SPEND BY SOMEBODY ELSE, TOO. ESPECIALLY NOT FOR CONSUMPTION PURPOSES. FOR SPECIFIC REASONS I AM MORE OPTIMISTIC ON PLATINUM THAN ON GOLD, BUT THAT IS ONLY A MINOR ISSUE. THE UPCOMING TIMES WILL BE TOUGH AND THE SKY WILL FALL FOR MANY BUT FOR SOME AND THAN FOR THE MAJORITY OF HUMANITY THIS WILL BE A TIME OF LIBERATION. THANK YOU FOR STRENGTHEN MY CONVICTION! STEFAN ALBRECHT, NYC