ARTICLE: Breach of Trust: Bernard Madoff's massive fraud will cripple American capitalism, By Anne Applebaum, Slate, Dec. 15, 2008

The almost hysterical extrapolating of current data points into dark futures re: capitalism reaches near apogee in this piece: Madoff dooms American capitalism. These are simply the realities of frontier integration in a period of expansive globalization. Such a historically rapid spread of the global economy is naturally going to hit rough spots, replete with swindlers, but to then draw such conclusions from the latest bubble burst is extremely unstrategic in terms of analysis--almost childish. People are losing all perspective, marking this moment as a true panic. But serious System Perturbations do that, thus the temptation of reaching for "strong leaders" in "uncertain times." Here is where we hope Barack Obama is so much smarter than the pundits. I'm not saying it's a high bar. I just want to clear it by a big-ass margin--please! More seriously: you see the low quality of the strategic implications analysis currently being offered, and you realize how smart people can trigger something like the Great Depression through lengthy and determined acts of great myopia. (Thanks: Pat O'Connor)