About 30 minutes into the film I'm wondering if I can get back the fees I paid for my economics degree all those years ago. Later, as the credits roll, I'm rather more desperately wondering where I can go to hide. Then it strikes me that South Africa might be as good a place as any if the bubble that looked as though it was going to burst in 2008, does eventually burst. We do have a few of our own problems to sort out, but the good news ( it's all relative) is that compared with what might happen in the northern hemisphere, the corruption and ineptitude that blight our own landscape can seem manageable.story_article_left1Later, in the foyer of the Labia cinema, in Cape Town, a few of us are chatting to Theo Kocken, one of the writers of the movie - Boom Bust Boom - about the prognosis for the world economy. His grim description of the fragility of the global and political economy seems disturbingly well demonstrated by events unfolding in Greece as we speak.Kocken is professor of risk management at VU University in Amsterdam and CEO of a risk consultancy company. He is also a guest lecturer at the Centre for Applied Risk Management at North-West University's Vaal Triangle campus.Part of the motivation for making the movie was that after 25 years of working in the field, he says he had to "de-learn" everything he had learnt about economics. His training hadn't prepared him for the crash of 2008. He decided to take a closer look at "crises economics" and how it is, or rather isn't, handled by traditional economic theory.Boom Bust Boom, he says, is about the Achilles heel of capitalism, identified by Hyman Minsky in the '60s - "how human nature drives the economy to crisis after crisis time and time again".story_article_right2The main reason, he reckons, is that traditional economic theory has no room for depressions. Economic theory requires us to suspend our critical faculties and believe that all markets move towards a state of equilibrium where supply meets demand. There may be a temporary excess of supply or surfeit of demand, but that is merely a brief aberration. A closely related flaw in economic theory is the assumption that humans always behave logically.Kocken's ambitious plan is to overhaul the teaching of economics so it accepts instability - and non-logical behaviour - as a normal part of capitalism.This, he believes, will ensure policy makers and regulators respond appropriately to prevent bubbles.He believes the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in the US (which barred investment banks from merging with retail banks); the failure to deflate the evident bubble in the early 2000s; and allowing banks to become so large they could not fail, are all symptoms of a lack of knowledge or understanding of the inevitability of depressions.Every generation thinks it's smarter than the one before, and those who do have some understanding of an earlier depression are adamant that "this time it's different". The inevitable result of this hubris is that the bubbles get bigger and the consequent depressions more severe.story_article_left3Kocken is adamant the bubble we thought had been sorted out in the years after 2008 is still with us. It has been made bigger by efforts, primarily quantitative easing, designed to deal with its consequences. Northern hemisphere central bankers have essentially poured money into financial markets, but not into the real economy.The room for further quantitative easing or any other form of stimulus injections is fast closing, reducing the likelihood of another China boom scenario.The movie took shape after Kocken's chance meeting with Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. It's described as a "feature documentary", combining live action with animation and puppetry to explain economics to everyone.The subject is grim, but Jones makes it extremely entertaining; you almost don't realise how much you're learning. And how scary it is.The movie is not on general release yet, but viewings can be arranged through the Boom Bust Boom website...