There is no limit to human ingenuity in finding new ways to go bust.
Before the crisis many central bankers believed that all they needed was a "hammer" (interest rates) to strike a "monetary nail" (consumer-price inflation). But not every problem is a nail. Policymakers also need a full set of "macroprudential" tools, from wrenches to duct tape E.
Mr Murray starts by lamenting the isolation of a new upper class, which he defines as the most successful 5 % of adults (plus their spouses) working in managerial positions, the professions or the senior media. These people are not only rich but also exceptionally clever, because America has become expert at sending its brightest to the same elite universities, where they intermarry and confer on their offspring not just wealth but also a cognitive advantage that gives this class terrific staying power.
The best time to invest is when there is blood in the streets.
In the 19th century Alexis de Tocqueville marvelled that in America the opulent did not stand aloof from the people. A great cultural gap separates the elite from other Americans. They seldom watch "Oprah" or "Judge Judy" all the way through. In fact they do not watch much television at all. They eat in restaurants, but not often at Applebee's, Denny's or Waffle House, chains that cater to the common taste. They may take The Economist, with the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and perhaps the New Yorker or Rolling Stone. They drink wine and boutique beers (and can discuss them expertly) but only in moderation, and they hardly ever smoke cigarettes.
Mr Icahn had expounded his theory of the moronisation of American management. The typical chief executive, he said, to chuckles, is "the guy you knew in college, the fraternity president – not too bright, back-slapping, but a survivor, politically astute, a nice guy". To be a chief executive, you need to know how not to tread on anyone's toes on the way up. You eventually become the number two, who "has got to be a little worse than the number one to survive". When the number two becomes chief executive, he promotes someone a little worse than him as his second-in-command. "It is the survival of the unfittest," concluded Mr Icahn. "Eventually we are all going to be run by morons."