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Economic Crisis and Computer Science

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Drummond Ltd. Systems engineer Carlos A. Brewer R.

The origin of the financial crisis is the instability of the financial sector.

The financial sector and all its components were used by speculative agents who felt free to operate thanks to relaxed regulatory structures. The consequences of this situation is a disruption in the financial market that affects the capital market in a negative way and thus millions of people.

This is not the first time in history that an economic crisis has raisen; however, in a globalized world like the one we live in now, an economic crisis affects society in deeper ways than ever before.

A globalized world will not be possible without the help of computer science and computers.

Computers (and computer programs) were important players in the crisis because financial markets use them to track and control all transactions; this way, a financial trader can simulate scenarios, forecast values, tendencies, and so on.

With this information and additional data from markets and corporations, a financial trader can speculate and thus create a snowball of situations that can produce a financial market crisis.

What can computer science do here? Well, it can establish software audits to trends in the market so it triggers some alerts or early warnings on possible signs of speculation, just to set an example. There are many other things that a financial market can do with computer programs that will help prevent future crisises.

The central point of this discussion is that while computers are a key part of the transactions in financial markets, they can also be used as a tool to speculate and destroy them and here is where some sort of regulations or controls must be in place so computer software can be used to improve or help financial transactions to be made.

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