Worthy Opinions » David Haggith

In June of 2008, U.S. President George Bush taught us that “one of the things important about history is to remember the true history.” With that as our guide, and this being the final days of a truly historic presidency, I’d like to reflect on the wisdom of the previous year that got us where we are now.

“It’s too big to fail, it’s too big to fail,” has been the mantra of the U.S. government bailout program. If crises occur because these organizations are such behemoths that a single institution falling can cripple the economy under it, why have the top gurus in the Bush administration insisted upon making each institution far bigger still in order to save it?

During the winter of our discontent, which was January and February of 2008, the Bush administration fiddled as the U.S. was falling. While the Gurus of Government played happy music on their violins, singing that the economy was “fundamentally sound,” I was telling friends that we had entered a recession that had all the makings of another depression.

How do thousands of the world’s supposedly most brilliant investors fall for a con like Bernard Madoff and lose their shirts and slacks? The puzzle is not to explain how one person can be such a great con. There was nothing genius about his plan. His form of pyramid scheme, known as a Ponzi scheme, is one of the most common financial fiascoes in the world, known to all investors.