Ryan MacMillan

In my rangy gambollings over the reaches of the web, I stumbled over this little gem of a blog post by Irving Wladawsky-Berger at IBM. He eruditely compares the current balls-up in the financial industry with the Dotcom Bubble, about which he was well placed to know a thing or two, running as he was at the time IBM’s Internet Division. The subsequent commentary is worth reading too as it thoughtfully counters Professor Wladawsky’s position.

I wouldn’t dream of supposing to know whether this will turn out to be an accurate analogy of the financial crisis, future prediction being so intrinsically risky as it is, but it’s an interesting viewpoint. The media are feasting on the doom-and-gloom story of the “collapse of capitalism” while it’s still hot news, some big decisions seem to be being made, and corporate victims are falling in droves; meanwhile many of us who don’t have any savings or assets are wondering what the fuss is about. If this event runs its course in parallel to that of the internet a decade ago, we can expect to see a few versatile and solid institutions survive to prominence and a new age of commerce emerging. A “better” age, who knows? I’ll retire to my bunker and wait eagerly to find out.