The Economic Crisis

The current chapter shows the gap between the real economy and the financial markets in the United States during the pre-crisis period at the end of 2007, as well as during the subsequent crisis period. The current research chapter also emphasizes the catastrophic effect that financial markets had inside the whole economic system due to this gap. The premise from which this chapter starts can be found in the systems theory and consists in Heinz von Foerster's theorem. This research has an empirical nature and shows in which way an anomaly within the system can destabilize the entire system, finally resulting in the installation of the crisis period that we are still facing. In order to illustrate this, the authors refer to the evolution of the values of DJIA and real GDP, observed between mid 1940s until 2010 in the United States.