Wall Street Vs. Main Street

•  
  arvanro@...10/16/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: Wall Street Vs. Main Street

  Romano lost me in the very first paragraph, when he says a term like "Washington" is a useless because it conflates the "bad" Republican executive branch with the "good" Democrat congress, that opposes that evil executive.
  
  His premises so plainly stated, the conclusions are foregone, and trite.

•  
  tulsaboyw10/16/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: Wall Street Vs. Main Street

  He also ignores the reality.
  
  Reality that the mess was most of all mortgage meltdown that was specifically happened because 3 democrats who specifically blocked reform efforts that would have helped avoid this mess.
  
  Barney Franks is one specific one...who should be removed from office since he specificaly blocked reform efforts that were put forward by mostly republican efforts (but some democrats too).

•  
  Michael Fitzgerald10/16/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: Wall Street Vs. Main Street

  I agree that the first full paragraph could have been eliminated and the review would have been improved. I'm sorry I didn't say to skip the top part and look what he says about the books.
  
  For that matter, Fraser's book is the only one he treats in depth. What he said about it made me interested in reading it. I also was intrigued by the Michael Lewis anthology, especially since it seems to disagree with Romano's main point.
  
  Main Street, the novel, is a classic. That said, Lewis couldn't write the same book today. That Main Street is gone, though it still informs our ideas about America.
  
  Michael

•  
  Michael Fitzgerald10/16/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: Wall Street Vs. Main Street

  As for scapegoats, I think it's a little difficult to point at three politicians and say 'they did it.' This is not Clue, the Meltdown Edition.

•  
  Joe.enlight10/20/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: Wall Street Vs. Main Street

  Actually, it's easy to pin this on two people. Their names are Black and Scholes. These two idiots got people to bleieve in the skinny tails of the normal curve when applied to real phenomena. This lead the CDS writers to underestimate the probability of default, which killed Lehman and $120B of AIG, and counting.

•  
  Michael Fitzgerald10/20/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: Wall Street Vs. Main Street

  Now there's a good argument for two people who might really qualify as scapegoats. Although an awful lot of other people had to throw common sense out the window. We're obviously not as skeptical as when De Tocqueville was wandering through America.
  
  michael