Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Where's the Outrage?

Jim Grant is one of the best financial writers out there and I absolutely loved his editorial in the Wall Street Journal, asking "Where is the Outrage?" He's such a smooth writer, with a great sense of financial history and he has a keen understanding of the system, which his grown so complex, that few people really understand it (including me). A little snippet:

"Leverage," as the laying-on of debt is known in the trade, is the Hamburger Helper of finance. It makes a little capital go a long way, often much farther than it safely should. Managing balance sheets as highly leveraged as Wall Street's requires a keen eye and superb judgment. The rub is that human beings err.

Definitely read this article.