Two Authors Nail the Financial Situation

In yesterday's New York Times, authors Michael Lewis and David Einhorn described with unusual clarity and detail what went wrong in the financial world over the last several years. The article, starting on page nine of the Week in Review section, is really extremely good -- a rarity in The Times. Their writing would be prescient if it had come in 2005. Instead, what we have is a post mortem of a financial system gone berserk. One has to ask the question the authors do not ask: Where was The Times when we needed it? As the authors make clear, common sense indicated there were troubles afoot.

Of course, this is the same New York Times which, along with the rest of the media, refused to honestly report on what happened in Florida in 2000 and at the Supreme Court on December 12, 2000, installing G.W. Bush as President against the will of the people. This was the same Times and the same media who buried the truth about what happened with the vote in Ohio and New Mexico and other places in 2004, denying the Presidency to John Kerry, and again thwarting the will of the people.

No one knows what would have happened with the economy had Al Gore gone into the White House in 2000. But almost definitely there would not have been an invasion of Iraq and very likely no attack of 9/11/01. But with a John Kerry in the White House it seems very unlikely there would have been such lax oversight of the financial industry as happened with Bush the Lesser. So we have a situation in which the major media must accept part of the blame for this fiasco.

Still, better late than never, as they say. And one is grateful for such a clear and fulsome accounting of the warnings of one Harry Markopolos about Bernard Madoff to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lewis' and Einhorn's lucid article helps set the record straight.

If, at any point, Bush and Cheney had been impeached, as Congress was repeatedly urged to do by figures as respected as Bruce Fein, John Dean, and John Nichols, we likewise would probably not be in this position. But taking into account the long-term it seems quite possible that Bush has made it clear what has truly been going on in this country. So we are likely farther ahead in the long run. By having an economy which is so obviously and truly awful, we can deal with things more easily as compared to an economy which is merely "recessed" or "slowed." At least this is what the optimist in me sees. And today I am in a mood to encourage that inner optimist. It is the only way to live.