Noah's Second Ark

"The financial crisis, which could never happen today, was simply the latest in a series of murderous twentieth-century catastrophes which had originated entirely in human brain. But the planet a million years ago was as moist and nourishing as it is today - and unique, in that respect, in the entire Milky Way. All that had changed was people's opinion of the place."

- Leon Trout ("Galápagos", 1985)

The thing is:

A financial crisis is brewing. The US Congressional Budget Office is projecting a continued economic recovery, but the debt held by American households is rising. Unless US economic policies change, that debt balloon is going to become the next bust.

Guy Spier, author of "The Education of a Value Investor", explains investors are struggling to trust the market again after the crunching decline of 2008 and 2009.

"The human memory for crisis lasts as long as 17 years. There’s an Arabic expression: You get bitten by a snake once then you run away from every coil of rope you ever see,:" he said.

Policymakers foresee another crisis on 2017. A few years away, which worries some of them. Memories of the last financial crisis is still fresh. This recalls the Latin American debt crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s, influenced by the international recession (of the 1970s). In "Galápagos", Kurt Vonnegut saw a silver lining.

The era of big brains

Galápagos Islands, an archipelago of volcanic islands 926 kilometers west of Ecuador, was studied by Charles Darwin. A Spanish crew led by Bishop of Panamá Fray Tomás de Berlanga first set foot in it in 1535. The islands were named "Insulae de los Galopegos" (Islands of the Tortoises) in reference to the Galápagos giant tortoise, found in seven of the isles. It didn't appeal to the Spaniards, but Darwin's visit in 1832 changed everything. He discovered a vast number of endemic species. The native of Shewsbury became a celebrity in scientific circles a few years later. "On the Origin of Species" was published in 1859. This turned Galápagos Islands into a tourist destination.

James Wait was on a holiday in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He was an American posing as a Canadian, and no one in this South American country knew that he became wealthy after marrying one heiress after another. (He was no Blackbeard.) He joined the "Nature Cruise of the Century" Tour, lured by the enticing promise of a memorable trip. But once on board the Bahía de Darwin, he found out that there were only six passengers. They have no idea of the global financial crisis crippling the entire world. (The few number of passengers didn't make them curious.) They were caught up in a storm, survived, and ended up in Santa Rosalia, one of the isles in Galápagos.

A mysterious disease rendered the entire world fertile, turning the survivors in Santa Rosalia as the last members of the human species who could breed. But Mother Nature had plans. Two of the shipwreck survivors were Zenji Hiroguchi and Hisako Hiroguchi. The latter was pregnant when the married couple were off the mainland. Akiko Hiroguchi, their daughter, was born with fur covering her entire body. Darwin's theory on the evolutionary theory would take effect.

Vonnegut hinted that the human brain was the reason behind the catastrophes. (Mary Hepburn, another surviving member of the shipwreck, constantly fought the urge to hang herself. It was her "big brain" that kept on telling her to do it.) Leon Trout, who built the Bahía de Darwin, was the narrator of this strange voyage. He was long dead when the the ship was crossing the Pacific, a witness to what was about to transform. These survivors would save the world.

And the thing became

Vonnegut was THE counterculture's writer. The debt crisis in Latin America and the AIDS epidemic were his inspiration for this novel, which was made perplexing by the large number of quotations from famous authors ("It is wonderful to see with how little nature will be satisfied." - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne). This wasn't meant to confuse the readers. On the contrary, it questioned the human mind. It was the only one that conceived the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and other remarkable constructions that defined human civilization. It could also be the cause of our demise. (Only a perceptive mind would see a grain of truth behind this fantastic tale.)

So how does the next financial crisis has to do with the novel? Let's wait for another intellectual (like Vonnegut) to find a connection.