Thank you, Flavius, for mentioning this symposium. It was a fascinating, and very educative discussion, especially for a fellow like me who has a lot to learn about economics.

I don't care much for anybody's predictions, regardless of how many letters and hallowed institutional references follow their names. But I appreciate Ferguson's approach to the problems of money. So it didn't bother me to see you declare him the "winner."

Since I'm still trying figure out the difference between a monetarist and a Keynesian, (it really seems to me to have more to do with whether the trickle-down Republicans or the trickle-up Democrats are spending the greenbacks)--I appreciate a panelist who explains causes and effects in a comprehensible way.

At the very end of that New York Review of Books Symposium, Bill Bradley spoke some quite lucid remarks. His analysis was so profound, in fact, that I would submit his name as the dark-horse winner.

He outlined three mistakes for which our government is responsible:
1.) repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999
2.) 1999 decision to not regulate derivatives and credit default swaps
3.) 2004 SEC allowance of 30:1 leveraged debt ratio for banks, instead of the former 10:1.

Pertaining to non-regulation of the new, complex financial instruments, Mr. Bradley offered this explanation, as quoted in the New York Review of Books,:
"...the decision not to regulate derivatives created the following sequence: you have mortgages; then a thousand mortgages are packaged and sold as a mortgage-backed security; a thousand mortgage-backed securities are packaged and sold as a collateral debt obligation [CDOs]; then a thousand collateral debt obligations are packaged and sold as a CDO squared; and insuring each one of those bundles are credit default swaps, which are a part of that $33 trillion. And our government deliberately decided not to regulate this chain of investments."

Good analysis, I thought. He also concluded his remarks, and the discussion too, with a chastisement of Mr.Greenspan for not withdrawing "the punchbowl"from "the party."

The celabrants had gotten tipsy and irresponsible with their wild management of America's nestegg.
The Fed chaiirman hadn't curbed their intoxicated behavior; Congress had passed the buck years ago.
Then the derivatives hit the fan, and,well, you know the rest...

I don't think anyone can predict what's going to follow this disaster.

Carey Rowland, author of Glass half-Full