The few

There is some sort of pattern about this. Cortez conquered more than 300,000 Aztecs with 400 Spaniards and a few thousand Indian mercenaries. Enron was brought low by the actions of fewer than a dozen men. President Nixon resigned and caused a crisis after the Watergate mess planned by a few men. Bernie Madoff caused the collapse of several financial entities by paying out much more than he was taking in, losing 30 billion in the process. Now, Wall Street has collapsed and many banks are insolvent due to the actions of a handful of men. The national economy is in dire straits because a few men thought there was no end to the flow of good money available for bad investments. What next? Will crops fail, too? Are the farms in the hands of a few? Pictures at 11:00.

Five seconds of carelessness

It didn't have to end this way: From a story in The New York Times: “Adolph Merckle’s creditors were responsible for his death, even if they were not present by the tracks on that snowy night that he jumped in front of the train”, said a town resident. His employees and residents of his hometown saw Mr. Merckle as a decent, taciturn man who looked after his workers and his community, despite his wealth. He was No. 94 on Forbes magazine’s most recent ranking of the 400 richest people in the world. His four children grew up in a modest one-family house with the Merckle name on the mailbox. “I look at this as the banks’ taking the heart out of the family,” said a member of the Blaubeuren City Council. Mr. Merckle’s suicide shocked Germany as much as it angered Blaubeuren, where he was eulogized Monday at a memorial service that overflowed the hamlet’s church.” Merckle had recently lost 400 million Euros in a bad bet against the share price of VW. He was deep in debt with no way to pay it down quickly or restructure it. His flagship company was about to be sold. He had simply been caught in the vise of the worldwide economic downturn – completely unprepared. But, he had also borrowed way too much in order to acquire new businesses. One of my favorite teachers once told me, “be careful that you never bite off more than you can chew.” GOOD ADVICE.