MIT Economics Lectures Online

I am particularly impressed by an online Lecture at the MIT Economics Department. Lester Thurow is lecturing on Globalization and the Economic Downturn. Presented in RealVideo (alas, RealPlayer works poorly in MacOSX under Classic).
Thurow is a much more compelling speaker than your usual economics pundit, he's lecturing to MIT Economics students with an attitude of "if you don't know this stuff, people will eat your lunch, and there are people running things right now that don't know this stuff and someone is eating our lunch." Thurow makes some interesting analyses about previous "bubble" cycles, like Tulip Mania or the Gold Rush, and compares it to the dot-com bubble and the state of telecommunications business today. He condemns certain businesses that are marginally profitable during periods of high growth but are massively unprofitable in times of low growth. This is something I used to lecture my bosses about endlessly. They'd proclaim a 20% increase in sales, but when pressed, would admit it only netted a 5% increase in profit. Then sales would dip 5% one month and they'd go deep into the red.
Thurow also has a few harsh comments about the Japanese economic problem. He asserts that the Japanese economy is rotten to the core because it has one legal principle that the USA does not, 2nd-generation mortgages, parents can assume debts that their children must repay. Thurow denounces these loans as indentured servitude, and would be outlawed in the USA as slavery. He asserts Japanese families are burdened with huge debts on homes and real estate, loans taken out when real estate prices were at their peak, and now are devalued to half of the loan's worth. Thurow suggests the only way to solve the economic problems is for the Japanese government to give tax credits to the banks if they'd write down the value of home mortgages and real estate loans by 40%.