http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-davos-reutersmagazine-salmontre80q1g2-20120127,0,7331753.story
Felix Salmon is a writer who writes very well for English literature. This is not necessarily good for writing about financial news. My guess is that most people who read financial news would prefer bullet point to prose.
"On top of that, finance is particularly susceptible to the kind of hubris that one finds in people who think that if they've made millions of dollars, they must be the "smart money," with an edge not only over the public but even over their fellow bankers and financiers. That, in turn, sets up some very easy morality plays. When the inevitable nemesis arrives, the weaknesses of the erstwhile Masters of the Universe are exposed for all to see, and those of us whose job it is to Explain Finance take every opportunity to spell out exactly what these prideful men got wrong. They weren't smart, they were stupid!
"If very intelligent, successful, and aggressive men like Robert Rubin, John Thain, or Jon Corzine could be so stupid, then, realistically speaking, everybody was stupid. And if everybody was stupid, then, in reality, nobody was quite as stupid as we now think they were."
Frankly, I am more of a Michael Lewis kind of guy.
