The Crash Course - a Review  

There has been a lot of news about the state of the economy lately, and a lot more of what is considered analysis. I've been ignoring quite a lot of it, but this recent work was recommended by a friend, so I gave it a look.

The Crash Course by Chris Martenson is a longish set of videos, thankfully broken down into a couple dozen 10-20 minute blocks. It attempts to educate the viewer on the basics of the economy, the current situation, and the probable future.

I started watching the videos in the hope that it would do a good job covering the economic situation we are getting ourselves into. As I watched the first few videos, I saw that the production quality was good and that the content was well developed. The facts presented were all right on, although I was skeptical about the upcoming chapters on the environment. Intrigued, I kept watching.

When I finally got to the sections on the environment, I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of wild conspiracy theories about peak oil, I watched a moderate but scientifically plausible discussion of resource depletion. While I'm not sure I agree with the author on the environmental points he made, he made them well. Regardless, the rest of the videos were spot on and did a good job describing the basics.

The only substantive gripe I have about the video series is the format it is provided in. The website displays the videos in a custom Flash player. You can't embed the videos on your own site like you can with YouTube videos. Also, a few of the videos took a long time to load.

That being said, I do recommend that everyone view the videos. Take your time - viewing one per day might be good. If you're like me though, you won't want to quit once you've started.