Mongoose -

I must be a worse writer than I thought. I have a medium level of knowledge of ERM software having tracked their implementation over five generations – last I looked – the time required to match the software functionality to the business model/structure in a way that is marginally more meaningful than fighting off “feral cats while dancing on white hot coals.” The ERM apps were little more than a blip over the radar screen of 2008 and out. My primary query was whether tackled matrix structures were modeled.

But I need little incentive to segue into rant over performance of financial services. There should be a special level in hell reserved for the senior management that shorted their own portfolios to provide a cushion for the incipient collapse – a collapse that destroyed 40% of the “Redneck” portfolio wealth. They can bud up with the politicians who pressured for deterioration of lending standards in the name of feel-good social policy and the regulators who were too busy shipping their personal wealth off-shore. The performance legacy will be destruction of the capitalist model.

Political Capitalism [h/t Elephant Bar]

The authors argue that during the last century political institutions were used by business to create a stable and predictable economic environment (very different from that of the Robber Barons). I predict that the Common Man will begin to demand that government provide a stable and predictable environment for the growth of private portfolios. The performance legacy of the cumulative failures leading up to 2008 may well be the destruction of the capitalist model.