Everyone agrees that the current financial crisis is a self-engineered affair, an circle jerk orgy of fantasy profits emanating from eight years of Wall Street masturbatory excess — unfettered and unregulated because the laws were sneaked through while no one was looking.* And yet here we sit as the brew for our own 21st century Great Depression simmers menacingly, affecting every single American and possibly billions more around the globe.
Maybe one of the reasons "nobody saw it coming" is because "nobody" was too busy fishing through the bank transactions of one of Wall Street's most insightful and powerful critics, Eliot Spitzer.
*Phil Gramm's beloved deregulatory legislation passed in December 2000, the height of the Bush-Gore election controversy. Legislation permitting massive, unaccountable capital leverage for the biggest investment banks passed in August 2004, the height of the Swift Boating of John Kerry.