Any and ALL of Robertson Davies' books are at the top of my reading list.

Now about greed...alas, tied (thanks to the US Republican Party) to power. All of the regulations put into place after the Great Depression were systematically dismantled starting with the Reagan administration right down through the Dubyah administration. Then somebody came up with some really iffy ideas about bundling and selling crap as mortgaged backed "securities". Lenders certainly wouldn't take responsibility for no money down, etc. loans -- besides, by the time it all came crashing down, they'd have taken the money (and maybe run). Instead they're getting "bailed out" -- which amounts to rewarding the very people who trashed the companies in the first place.

I could go on...

Excellent article by Niall Ferguson in the December issue of Vanity Fair (which, besides commenting on rich people acting badly, has some of the best political and financial reporting around). The article is entitled "Wall Street Lays Another Egg" -- "The author charts the emergence of an abstract, even absurd world -- call it Planet Finance -- where mathematical models ignored both history and human nature, and value has no meaning."

Skarpi, we're holding you and your family in our hearts and thinking about you and your whole country's situation a lot. We're not immune here in the US, but at least I've still got a job and Tom still has his"seasonal" job and things look more or less "secure" (as far as that goes) on the income front.

Linn