Great article in Vanity Fair "Wall St Lays Another Egg.long but great read..really..

[xiamiam]

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/12/banks200812.by Niall Ferguson..too much to post..lays it out very clearly...

[Why Syzygy]

1. Bad link. nt

[katsy]

2. .

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/12/banks200812

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. delete

[Recursion]

4. I love Niall Fergusen

His book on World War I is far and away the best one out there.

Oddly enough he's a conservative personally, but he's an objective historian and doesn't let his own views cloud his historical judgment.

[Recursion]

5. "On Point" (NPR) had a good interview with him last week

http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/11/the-new-world-of-finance/

Same subject.

[xiamiam]

9. thanks for the link...i think he's a bit pessimistic..but then he's smarter than me..i should have

at least listened to the folks here ...predicting this mess as well..well not quite this mess...but the bursting housing bubble

[closeupready]

6. K&R

thanks.

[tularetom]

7. I got to Page 6 before it all turned to mumbo jumbo

All in all an excellent article.

But for those looking for assurances that the current financial crisis will not produce social disruption on a scale of the 1930's you aren't gonna find it here.

In fact it won't be easy to find it anywhere. We're in uncharted territory here and nobody can tell WTF is going to occur.

"May you live in interesting times."

[wellst0nev0ter]

8. Another Eye-Rack War Useful Idiot

Sorry, I pass.

[Recursion]

10. Huh?

He was one of the few on the right who didn't cheerlead for Iraq. His only "support" for it was saying that if we were going to do this we needed a lot more troops, and we needed to explicitly call it an Imperial war.

[wellst0nev0ter]

11. See This Post

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2007/05/niall-ferguson-wanker.html

[Recursion]

12. yeah, that's exactly my point

Before the war/early in the war:

"Don't do this unless you're willing to spend 10 years in there with several hundred thousand troops"

Late in the war:

"You screwed this up by pretending the US can act imperially without being an empire"

He seems to have gotten the facts right early and late, yes?

[wellst0nev0ter]

13. He Wasn't Exactly Opposed To Empires, Was He?

Nope, still a useful idiot.

[Recursion]

14. I'd have much prefered a competent imperialist to the incompetent ones we got NT