"I'm still mesmerized by the virtually uncountable number of intelligent individuals worldwide who were revealed as dumb in 2008. What happened to them? What if mass dumbing down is now the norm?

Avarice explains a lot of bad behavior. So does the Federal Reserve's free-money interest rates, inducing a mania of moral hazard. More intriguing to me than the standard theory of manias and bubbles is the supersized human error rate of the past several years. The decline and fall of so many American financial institutions in one year can't be written off to "mistakes." These were cataclysmic mistakes.

Only one other area of modern life produces this unprecedented error rate: the World Wide Web. Could it be that in the world of money, the information highway was the road to ruin."

Nicholas Bate reminds us to go easy on that thing in your jacket pocket (or on your belt).  Yes, that is a person in front of you:

"Tim: Jack, did you have a view?

Tim:  Jack. Would you mind?

Jack:  Err. Sorry. Just needed to respond quickly to that.

Jack:  A view. Of course. What were you saying?

Buzz.

Jack: Just one moment would you."

And Managing Leadership urges us to think properly (which is sometimes "in the box"):

"A problem with that is that by focusing solely on the thinking process, it promotes what is likely to be equally dysfunctional – or, at least, unhelpful – alternatives. It may seem obviously useful to find ways to generate unconventional thinking in order to uncover new perspectives and approaches. But the focus here is on method, not purpose."