James Surowiecki writes, "On Wall Street, fraudulent schemes tend to thrive during economic booms, and to blow up when times turn tough. While bank robbers are getting busier, the Bernard Madoffs are starting to get caught ... Cheap money engenders a surfeit of trust, and vice versa. (The word “credit” comes from the Latin for “believe.”) The same overconfidence that leads investors and lenders to underestimate the risks of legitimate investments also leads them to underestimate the likelihood of fraud." The full article is here in case you missed this short entry on last week's New Yorker.
And here is a very interesting discussion of the current crisis and state of affairs by Niall Ferguson:
