/me earlier....and "market-based fundamentals" such as you describe -- may not really exist given the historical pay-for-play intervention of the government/s in these markets.

I'll definitely agree with that.

Then comes the question of whether a pure market *could* exist (no government involvement, for example). Some folks think so. I think, but am not certain, that "big L" Libertarians would say so. As a "small l" libertarian, I'm less confident that it could.

Shouldn't you be taking the Empegs with you wherever you go, at all times? They even have carrying cases for that. Although, apparently, some of them can actually alter your sexual orientation if other threads on this board are to believed. So, watch your step!

I am actually heading in the direction of having Empegs pre-deployed where I need them -- am going to clone my 60GB to a backup unit and perhaps leave it on my boat hidden in a Pelican case

Fear not, I have only black and blue carry cases that help reinforce my sexual identity!. (I was waiting for someone to jump on my case for indirectly implying that the Empeg was obsolete!!)

I agree this is where the system is failing. People can make risky investments if they want to. But they should be able to tell whether they are risky.
All the recent corporate frauds were basically illegally hiding the risk from the investors. This particularly sucks for people within 5 years of retirement. Because there is no way they can get their lifetime of savings back. If I were in that bracket, I would definitely be looking for a way to have "a little conversation" with a few CEOs, as they might say on The Sopranos.

Absolutely fraudulent are many of these stories. FWIW, I do feel, though, that the Enrons and Tycos are simply the purest expression of a smash-and-grab mindset that pervaded the 90s. Essentially, that the value of options was what mattered over anything else. A former boss was probably worth $15 million on paper at one point but listened to the siren song of buying more shares on margin and is now worth precisely zero; there were a lot of people who put their eggs in a single basket in the hope that their particular Enron would float long enough and they would never have to work again. Well, I have little sympathy for some of those folks (what *were* they thinking??) but I do have a lot of sympathy for the poor bastard who went from working for a real utility like Portland Gas and Electric (with a real pension) on one day to involuntarily working for Enron the next day.

But if worse comes to worst, try to get some Tabasco, cilantro, curry, and a wok. Then you can probably get through it....

I have been doing some preliminary taste tests with Huy Fong Tuong ot Sricacha "Rooster" Sauce!

I'll take you up on your offer of a free copy. And I'll read it. But if I think it's bogus I'd like to reserve the right to mail it back to you rather than passing it on. Otherwise, onward it goes.

E-mail me your delivery particulars and I'll get it on its way (maybe a drop ship, say). If you do feel like mailing it back to me, perhaps I could redirect if another BBSer is interested?

I won't say that it is a perfect book. I found some of it repetitive in part due to less-than-perfect organization of the book. That being said, I thought it scored pretty high. A lot of the book was consumed with drawing parallels between recent boom/bubble cycles and previous Gilded Age cycles in Spain, Holland, and England. One of his contentions is that in all of these cases the economies transitioned from actual production into a gilded period of "Financialization" and that decline followed.

Anyhow, for better or worse, it is not simply a look at "the History of the American Rich" as the title suggests. Liberal Democrats might read this book and consider it ammunition for their bipolar struggle against Republicans. I did not draw that kind of conclusion. I'll be interested to see what you think.