Each Firm Held Its Rope;

The Irish Turned In On Themselves And Bid Up Their Own Land Prices In The Most Extraordinary Ways... The Irish People Stepped In And Guaranteed The Banks, And Committed To Repay Sums They Can't Afford To Repay, And Essentially Committed Themselves To Generations Of Suffering.

The Lesson Of Buffett Was: To Succeed In A Spectacular Fashion You Had To Be Spectacularly Unusual.

The Only Thing History Teaches Us, A Wise Man Once Said, Is That History Doesn’t Teach Us Anything.

A Credit Default Swap Was Confusing Mainly Because It Wasn't Really A Swap At All. It Was An Insurance Policy, Typically On A Corporate Bond, With Semiannual Premium Payments And A Fixed Term.

Time And Space Are Absolute. Diseases Are Evil Spirits That Inhabit The Body. Parallel Lines Never Meet. The Earth Is The Center Of The Universe. Children Are Miniature Adults. At One Time In History Each Of These Beliefs Was Generally Held To Be True. Each, However, Gave Way To Different Ideas And Even Different World Views.