I love Bob
Bob Cringely hits it on the head in this blog post. In commenting about an erroneous chart that made the rounds on Wall Street without the fairly obvious problem being noticed, he says:
How could this be? It’s because Wall Street doesn’t work the way we think it does — the way we are led to believe it does. Wall Street is a marketplace, a selling ground where everything from ideas to stocks and bonds are on sale every day. And there is nobody easier to sell to than a salesman. Come up with a good chart that’s ALMOST within an order of magnitude of reality, put a disclaimer on the bottom, and let ‘er rip.
No wonder we’re in a global financial crisis.
The people we count on to understand what’s going on can’t even read a chart.
Yeah, let’s give these people some more federal bailout money.