The Success of Failure

Now that we're coming (we hope) to the end of the recession, let's give thanks for the economic down-turn—for being worried and broke, getting fired, and having the value of our investment portfolio reduced to the point that when our stockbroker calls to suggest a trade, he means grocery-store coupons.

"It's part of the genius of capitalism," said the Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, in January. "People get to make good decisions or bad decisions, and they get to pay the consequences or to enjoy the fruits of their decisions. That's the way the system works." Of course, O'Neill wasn't talking about the recession. He was talking about Enron. And the system to which he referred is, mainly, the Bush Administration's system of getting off the hook for its involvement with Enron. The Secretary of the Treasury was blowing PR out the seat of his political pants. But truths ...