300 Optimists

By: Paul Cella (Diary)  |  March 16th at 08:20 PM  | 

G. K. Chesterton, demonstrating his genius at the art of paradox, once referred to optimism as “morbid.” Since the moment I read that (it appears in the second chapter of The Everlasting Man, I have felt in my bones that it is true, and have accordingly nurtured a healthy repugnance for the braggarts of optimism. But as with many paradoxes, it is difficult to explain | Read More »

Derivatives and human hubris.

By: Paul Cella (Diary)  |  December 24th at 10:32 AM  | 

Learning of the kinds of exotic instruments used by Wall Street in the years before the crash can be a mind-boggling experience. First, of course, because of the complexity of these things; but also because of the staggering sums of “paper wealth” they produced. AIG and other firms sold credit default swaps in such massive numbers that there was at one point insurance on over | Read More »

Notes on the crisis

By: Paul Cella (Diary)  |  December 13th at 04:12 PM  | 

I’m standin’ in the shadows with an aching heart I’m lookin’ at the world, tear itself apart — Bob Dylan, “Mississippi” Here Dylan has given us a brilliant summation of the condition of the simple citizen in the face of the economic crisis that exploded in our faces in mid-September, and which may well prove more momentous than another calamity, another September, seven years earlier. | Read More »