She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Monday, March 2, 2009

What the fuck happened?

Ok, I know this is pretty dry stuff, but this is too important to not post. If you're like me, you've been hearing about this whole credit crisis, and maybe you've had this basic idea of what went wrong. Something like "People got greedy, took on a bunch of risk that was stupid, and then got burned." Maybe a little more detail, maybe a little less. But if you're like me in another respect (less likely), you felt vaguely itchy about not really understanding the whole mess. I mean, the world is fucking ending (I don't actually recommend reading that), and I don't really get why. Until now!

Wired to the rescue. Fucking inspired journalism. Here's what happened.
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2 comments:

Lane said...

http://vimeo.com/3261363

This is a really good (simplified) visual of the credit crisis and its origin.

March 3, 2009 at 6:59 AM
Unknown said...

All of this "what went wrong with the markets" stuff is all bull shit. It simply comes down to incentives. For capitalism to work, all of the players must have appropriate incentives. Because short term managers at investment banks were incentivized to rip immediate profits rather than act in the best interest of the company (the market participant), the markets failed. Whether in banking, manufacturing, or service, this will always happen. Adam Smith did not account for profit-demanding shareholders.

March 3, 2009 at 10:07 AM

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