Bird and Fortune - Subprime Crisis

Well, at least comedians seemed to understand the crisis several months before Lehman crashed: "Subprime Banking Mess" ▶ this video "John Bird and John Fortune (the Long Johns) brilliantly, and accurately, describing the mindset of the investment banking community in this satirical interview."

They started doing the same stuff they did pre-crisis like months later. But first they made sure to pay themselves billions of dollars in bonuses. ▶ this video

"Good names" humour Truth is your product probably didn't have a great "good name". See starting at 5:18 in ▶ this video -- that's about the subprime market. hilarious. So, as the video demonstrates: no fucking great idea can challenge a really great "good name" To make my point, let's put an example (me). Take a commodity idea. Say "a wiki". And then name it "SimplyWiki", or, adding some trickery, "SimpliWiki". Now your get a great "good name" and it is the only thing that really matters. /humour Well... some persistence is good too, as mentioned before, so... keep trying and remember to have fun, it's easier to persist in doing fun things.

Oohh... This is one of my favourite documentary series of all time. Compulsive viewing. I'm not sure how it exposes anything about the current situation, but it sure underlines what the free-market economy means, how it came about and why it's so important for our lives. One of the underlying messages in the series is that Free markets and Free democracy are intrinsically linked. I'd be really interested to see a 2008 update on this. One that takes into account the new China and Putin's Russia. While China is touched upon in the series - I feel that the author would have many more insights on the impact of China on the rest of the world, today. And Putin's Russia - well here's another piece of fascinating history in the making. One of my favourite sub-plots in the series is the Thatcher story, and the economic reasoning behind the removal of government subsidy for industry. While I was too young to understand it at the time, surely this was one of the greatest feats of leadership in a long time. For something lighthearted and more related to today, see either of the following: The subprime primer: link And from the BBC comedy department, 'Bird and Fortune' ▶ this video