Calvin Trillin: Recession Caused By Intelligent People

nytimes.com:

"The financial system nearly collapsed," he said, "because smart guys had started working on Wall Street." He took a sip of his martini, and stared straight at the row of bottles behind the bar, as if the conversation was now over.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[mmgbizgirl]

11:28 AM on 10/18/2009

It's called Greed, not Intelligence.

[steppenwolfsayshi]

03:11 PM on 10/17/2009

Of course. Only smart people can be that stupid.

[SangZe]

10:06 AM on 10/17/2009

Ah, yes, that intelligent Bush guy and his friends.

[anticapitalist1983]

01:06 AM on 10/17/2009

put up a poster in your neighborhood to show your displeasure with the financial crisis: http://www.scribd.com/doc/21140663/wallst

"wall street is at war with america"
it's time to stand up and say enough!
intelligence can be used for personal gain or social gain. it's time we reward the latter.

[sueinmn]

08:23 PM on 10/16/2009

By the brightest minds that required high retention bonuses.

[Mondayboy]

07:45 PM on 10/16/2009

what a stupid question.

[audadvnc]

04:14 PM on 10/16/2009

One more big DUH for the obvious. The Best and the Brightest, in love with their own cleverness, goosed the economy into dizzying levels of froth that no normal human could contemplate - until, just like an overpowered V8, it threw a rod. BANG!

And now we're sitting by the side of the road, waiting for a ride into town,,,

[Stock market]

01:32 PM on 10/16/2009

Unemployment still out of control and unfortunately we do not have anything that even
resembles a jobs plan from our wonderful leaders. Bailouts, tarp, health plans but no jobs.

hat tip to: http://tiny.cc/financenews

If this is change we can believe in, count me out in 2012

n

[sueinmn]

08:25 PM on 10/16/2009

No domestic policy yet denials on safety nets. UI. They put me into bankruptsy, I will have no resason to even vote again as neither party is useful.

[BobsNotWorking]

08:33 AM on 10/16/2009

This is one of the most sophomoric articles I've read in quite some time. Is this drivel really worthy of the New York Times? Try again pal. Next time try looking a little deeper. Maybe it would help if you had a grasp of our monetary system? Oh! It is indeed smart guys that cause it, but it sure isn't by accident as your article suggests.

[IntellectuallyHonest]

08:22 AM on 10/16/2009

The recession was caused by greed. Intelligent people save money and don't buy things they can't afford.

It was based mainly on the idea, IMO that one could make lots of money by doing very little work.

The important thing to remember when we collapse even farther is that there is enough for everybody. We have enough resources to feed everyone, give everyone clean air, oil or wood for heating etc.

Some people want to stay on top. Earning $1 million instead of $1 billion is a disaster for certain people.

This is a crisis largely caused by the wealthy. Wealthy people on Wall Street, or wealthy people calling the shots in government and in the media getting us into a war that doesn't make us safer and in fact makes us a lot poorer.

Maybe Calvin Coolidge was right after all. The business of America is business. Neutrality would be to our benefit, too.

[senorlou]

10:58 PM on 10/15/2009

I'd love to say that this truly was because of intelligent people, but intelligent people don't destroy their own economy. These were not intelligent people. These were greedy, criminals. Maybe they are smart because they've not only gotten away with it, they've been rewarded - look at the bonuses these crooks are getting - taxpayer financed bonuses. Their reward for cleaning out their fellow citizens. These citizens they fleeced were not so innocent either. They invested in companies like Halliburton, Exxon, health insurance companies. These people wanted to get rich by sitting on their behinds and collecting blood money. So they got suckered. So did the US Taxpayer - only I don't think the taxpayers wanted anything more than to pay their taxes.

[loki]

09:30 PM on 10/15/2009

yup it was caused by the what the top ivy schools consider the best and the brightest. All groomed and trained by the top Ivy Greed schools themselves. Working hard at Destroying America since 1780.

[drymartini1]

12:46 PM on 10/16/2009

your current and past president both went to ivy league !! talk about irony !!

[karen1p]

09:15 PM on 10/15/2009

I read somewhere that many CEOs and CFOs are psychopaths, sociopaths and anti-socials. Beginning to believe that.

[senorlou]

11:02 PM on 10/15/2009

Last I heard, the CEO of Blackwater, the mercinary company fighting in Iraq, was accused of murder. I think Rupert Murdoch qualifies for a couple of those labels.

[4TJefferson]

08:30 PM on 10/15/2009

Humm... Try "Intelligent Crooks" or "Intelligent Thieves" instead of "Intelligent People." On second thought; just "CROOKS" or "THIEIVES" should work. Ok. You can change the headline now.

[lvdragonlady]

05:58 PM on 10/15/2009

The answer to the question is NO. It was caused by GREEDY people, intelligent people.