Monday, September 22, 2008

Cassandra

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy. However, when she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions.
[Wikipedia entry, Cassandra]
Among the Cassandras among us today, one deserves praise for his prescience: Atrios (aka Duncan Black) over at Eschaton, who has been highlighting the value-free financial paper based on subprime mortgages for quite some time.

Frequently instructive, seldom pedantic... Always good-humored.
His none-too-subtle descriptor for the "wealth" created by this financial paper? Big Shitpile.

I've not done the research to discover when Atrios first coined big shitpile, but he has routinely covered the deepening financial crisis for as long as I've been reading him - at least 2 years, I'd guess.

While W, Paulson, and their minions were cheerleading for our fundamentally strong economy, Atrios busied himself detailing the coming crisis.

Forget AQA: read Eschaton!

1 comment:

P M Prescott said...

Wow, great minds think alike. I posted a similar post, but quoted Paul Krugman.