One of the joys, or hazards, of long flights is the chance to see movies you might ordinarily avoid. In no other setting, for example, would I subject myself to Tom Cruise's "Mission Impossible" vehicles or the latest Jennifer Aniston RomCom. But on a recent Tokyo-New York journey, I caught a couple of programs that proved oddly thought-provoking in the context of the global economy.
First: "About Time," the latest from Richard Curtis, the director of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Love Actually" fame. It's about a British family whose men can travel in time and right wrongs from the past. Next, a few episodes of BBC's "Doctor Who," a SciFi reboot of the adventures of time travelers who fix history's errors.
I couldn't help but fantasize about journeying back to undo many of the policy missteps. Really, what if economic officials could revisit those fateful moments and do things differently? Japanese officials could return to the late 1980s to avoid a massive asset crash. Thai authorities could reconsider their disastrous 1997 devaluation. Indonesians could head back and pick less calamitous post-Asian-crisis leaders. Americans could revisit 1999 and not repeal Depression-era safeguards that would've kept the 2008 from happening.