Where were they then--before the bailout?

All the people who went to the elite schools, who had the law degrees, MBAs, PhDs, who peopled the econ and finance faculties at left and liberal institutions like Harvard and Yale, Columbia and Darmouth, and who had years on the banking and finance committees in Congress, who knew several languages, had passports and travelled, wore the right clothes and drank the expensive wines, who knew all the beltway gossip and sent their children to private schools. Where are they? Where were they? When all this stuff was coming down over a year ago. And they didn't notice? Or told their staff to check on it because they were too busy running for a bigger job. You know--the folks who make fun of the lack of sophistication and experience of say, a Sarah Palin.

December 16, 2007, Financial Times: "A plethora of opaque institutions and vehicles have sprung up in American and European markets this decade, and they have come to play an important role in providing credit across the financial system. Until the summer, structured investment vehicles (SIVs) and collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) attracted little attention outside specialist financial circles. Though often affiliated to major banks, they were not always fully recognised on balance sheets. These institutions, moreover, have never been part of the “official” banking system: they are unable, for example, to participate in Monday’s Fed auction.

But as the credit crisis enters its fifth month, it has become clear that one of the key causes of the turmoil is that parts of this hidden world are imploding. This in turn is creating huge instability for “real” banks – not least because regulators and bankers alike have been badly wrong-footed by the degree to which the two are entwined."

Or, as a blogger I've never heard of before wrote today: "The very dipsticks who gave you this crisis now promise to solve it for you. I told you: this is not an economic crisis anymore, it’s a full-blown political emergency, and they’re all trying to hang on to "power". They can’t, so prepare for the sound of goose-stepping boots in your streets." Automatic Earth