The Lie of "The Perfect Storm"...

...Is that when one occurs a disaster is inevitable.

This truth occurred to me tonight when while switching TV channels I heard the term brought up regarding a recent financial disturbance.

When the original book was written "perfect" meant only the worst expected storm in 100 years.

Go back to the original book or even the movie-the George Clooney character decides to RISK a known bad storm for hope of financial gain because lately his performance was down as a fishing captain, and his reputation is fading for lack of positive results. So for financial gain and to underpin his reputation for success he convinces his crew to "go for broke" and then we watch as both he and the crew are broken. He knew the storm was coming and rather than face a setback he took his crew to their deaths.

Ever since this book/movie were made public the term "perfect storm", meaning "how bad it could become" has been taken to mean "unstoppable act of the Gods" and has been used often and poorly.

The next time the term rears it's ugly head it is again applied to a storm-Katrina. But while it may HAVE been a "perfect storm" the fact was that the defenses designed for New Orleans were supposedly designed to withstand a storm that strong and they failed-the storm was NOT unforeseen, the defenses were insufficient to withstand the purpose for which they were designed.

In fact, every time you hear the term "perfect storm" you should think "lie" and you should think "cover-up". Because by the time it was applied to Katrina it was used to imply something that could neither be anticipated nor survived.

So in the last year I've heard that the failure of the financial system was a "perfect storm". So was the failure of the stock market.In the last month so was the failure of the British Petroleum deep water rig and tonight it was last weeks melting of healthy stocks on the NYSE from $60 to zero...

Of course by this point you look at the situation and think to yourself "It might be FUN to see their boat overturn and watch those Bastards drown!".

But no-See-no one fails, no one lies, no one cheats, steals or does one DAMN thing wrong-every million, billion, trillion dollar loss is just an unstoppable act of the Gods! And of course there should never be any blame, or penalty, or Gods forbid-regulation...it was just a perfect storm and all we can do is commiserate. And if the losers are corporations a bail-out would be nice....and is probably impending.

You're absolutely right, and it's a shame that too many people are willing to concede that disaster is inevitable, from forces beyond anyone's control, when in reality it was the result of venality on a grand scale.

The other problem is that hardly anyone has any sense of history. Newspapers have always thrived on the notion that the news they print is what's just happened. They sort of have an excuse (not that I actually buy it) for presenting everything without context. But no other institution should be operating as if the world just began last week.

and your sig line rocks. For the rest of my life it's about consequences for people better connected than junkies and petty thieves.