2008 Market Crisis: Black Swan,
Perfect Storm or Tipping Point?
By Anthony H. Catanach, Jr. and Julie Anne Ragatz
Buzzwords make it possible to deflect responsibility for
the financial cataclysm.
I
t has become increasingly common to label
catastrophic events as black swans, perfect storms
and tipping points. During the past decade alone,
financial professionals have assigned the black
swan moniker to the 1998 collapse of Long Term
Capital Management; the 2000 dot-com bubble; the
2005 housing bubble; and, more recently, the financial market crisis.1 Similarly, the major accounting
and auditing scandals at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco,
Adelphia, HealthSouth, etc., have been attributed
to a perfect storm of factors that contributed to a
decline in reliable corporate financial statements.2
Others suggest that these corporate reporting failures resulted from auditors being pushed “past the
tipping point” to such an extent that professionalism
and independence rules simply were not enough
to ensure audit quality.3 In addition, just this past
August, the American Accounting Association adopted “Accounting at a Tipping Point” as its annual
meeting theme due to uncertainties surrounding the
adoption of fair-value accounting and international
financial reporting standards.
When crises occur today, common responses
include deflection, defense, blame and cover-up,
behaviors that increasingly are accepted as a means
to protect individual and organizational interests.4
So, the labeling of a catastrophic event as a black
swan, perfect storm or tipping point may be an attempt to deflect or obscure responsibility from those
parties whose behavior contributed to the cataclysm.
After all, if the event could not be predicted, or its
causes were so unique, then how could anyone be
held accountable for contributing to its occurrence?
Deflecting blame is now so routine that it is one of
the “Top 10 Workplace Dysfunctions.”5 Despite the
potentially negative way these terms may be used
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BANK ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
to avoid accountability or responsibility, however,
they actually might provide some useful insights
into problem resolution, particularly the 2008 financial market crisis. Which was it: black swan, perfect
storm or tipping point? This article examines which
of these three terms (Exhibit 1) best describes the
financial crisis and what we can learn to prevent a
future financial meltdown.
Exhibit 1. How to Describe the Financial Crisis
Black swan
A low-probability, high-impact occurrence that can be either positive or
negative in its effect, that is prospectively unpredictable but that everybody could see coming after it occurs.
Perfect storm
An unexpected dramatic event
resulting from a confluence of
unpredictable circumstances. No
individual contributing factor is powerful enough to create the resulting
“storm”; collectively, their confluence
creates an effect that is exponentially
more devastating and unimaginable.
Tipping point
The moment when an unfamiliar idea
or behavior crosses some imperceptible threshold and suddenly spreads
with the “speed of a bush fire.”
Anthony H. Catanach, Jr. is an Associate Professor in the financial services
strategic initiatives group at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova,
Pennsylvania, and the Cary M. Maguire Fellow at the American College
Center for Ethics in Financial Services, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Contact
him at anthony.catanach@villanova.edu.
Julie Anne Ragatz is a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at The American College
Center for Ethics in Financial Services. Contact her at
julieanne.ragatz@theamericancollege.edu.
APRIL–MAY 2010
Black Swan, Perfect Storm or Tipping Point?
Black Swans
A black swan event is a low-probability, high-impact
occurrence that can be either positive or negative in
its effect. A black swan is prospectively unpredictable,
but everybody could see it coming after it occurs.6 It
generally is agreed that the widespread use of derivatives in asset securitization transactions contributed
significantly to last fall’s financial crisis. However,
institutions and market regulators have known the
risks imposed by these financial reengineering tools
for years. In 1996, Peter L. Bernstein wrote the following about derivatives usage at that time:
Every single day, they [major money center
banks, top-tier investment bankers, and insurance companies] are involved in millions of
transactions involving trillions of dollars in
a complex set of arrangement whose smooth
functioning is essential. The margin for error is
miniscule … everyone is aware of the dangers
inherent in this situation, from the management
of each institution on up to the governmental
regulatory agencies that supervise the system.7
Even Warren Buffet expressed an opinion on derivatives in the 2002 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report:
The derivatives genie is now well out of the
bottle, and these instruments will almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some
event makes their toxicity clear. Central banks
and governments have so far found no effective
way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed
by these contracts. In my view, derivatives are
financial weapons of mass destruction [emphasis
added], carrying dangers that, while now latent,
are potentially lethal.8
The Financial Services Modernization Act and subsequent deregulation of financial services also likely
played a role in the recent financial crisis as historic
barriers between insurance, investment banking
and commercial banking were erased. Financial
service companies expanded business lines with
little oversight over systemic risks to the economy.
But even the risks of this deregulation were foreseen.
Representative John Dingell (D-MI) warned that the
law was creating a group of institutions that will
APRIL–MAY 2010
not just be “big banks” but “big everything.” He
also cautioned:
Under this legislation, the whole of the regulatory structure is so obfuscated and so confused
that liability in one area is going to fall over into
liability in the next. You are going to find that
they [financial institutions] are too big to fail,
so the Fed is going to be in and other federal
agencies are going to be in to bail them out. Just
expect that.9
Given Bernstein’s and Buffet’s warnings about
a future derivatives catastrophe, as well Dingell’s
concerns about financial services deregulation, the
recent financial crisis cannot be classified a black
swan event, if one is well versed in business risk
and financial market operations.
Perfect Storm
Sebastian Junger introduced the term “perfect
storm” to the popular vernacular in his best-selling
book of the same name, which depicted a 1991 battle
between a fishing vessel’s crew and a nor’easter.
This unexpectedly powerful storm resulted from
a confluence of unpredictable circumstances: warm
air from a low-pressure system coming from one
direction, a flow of cool and dry air generated by
a high pressure from another direction and tropical moisture provided by Hurricane Grace. The
perfect storm premise is that none of these factors
was individually powerful enough to create the
resulting storm; when they came together, however, their confluence created an effect that was
exponentially more devastating than anyone could
have imagined.
Recently, many have labeled the recent financial
crisis a perfect storm to explain how seemingly ordinary events could combine to wreak such havoc on
the global financial system.10 According to Ali Velshi,
CNN’s chief business correspondent, “It was a perfect storm … it was a lack of regulation, it was greed
and creativity in the financial industry, and it was an
American dream that got off track.”11 Even Russian
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a keynote speech at
the 2009 World Economic Forum told delegates that
the crisis constituted a “perfect storm.”12 But was the
2008 financial crisis really a perfect storm?
BANK ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
21
Black Swan, Perfect Storm or Tipping Point?
Exhibit 2. 2008 Financial Crisis Causal Factors
Economic
policy
The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates after the 2000 collapse of the technology industry and
cut rates further in the aftermath of 9/11.
Clinton and Bush administrations encouraged credit for marginal applicants to expand home
ownership. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchased billions of mortgage-backed securities to
further affordable housing goals.
Super–low-interest rates fueled home borrowing and rising real estate values until the summer of
2006, when property values dropped, teaser-rate ARMs repriced and delinquencies began.
Bank strategy Large banks struggled with their business strategies (how to add value to customers and
differentiate themselves in the marketplace).
They created new loan products to meet and fuel loan demand for mortgages (the option ARM,
subprime loans) and increasingly relied on loan securitization volume to generate fees and
commissions.
Big banks financed subprime lenders either through direct ownership, credit agreements or
securitized loan purchases.
Derivatives
Credit default swaps (insurance contracts) fueled the demand for mortgage-backed bonds,
allowing conservative institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies to
buy “safe” securities.
Hedge funds purchased higher-yielding riskier tranches comprised of questionable loans, thus
promoting “sloppy” mortgage lending.
Deregulation The 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act eliminated barriers between insurance, investment
banking and commercial banking.
The 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act exempted over-the-counter derivatives (for
example, credit default swaps) from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
In 2001, U.S. banking regulators created incentives for banks to buy highly rated mortgage-backed
securities. This was done by reducing the capital requirement for these assets from 80 percent to 60
percent.
Oversight
Credit rating agencies provided their highest credit ratings to collateralized debt products
comprised of toxic subprime mortgages.
Bank and securities regulators were unable to adequately monitor the deregulated markets due
to resource constraints, political pressures and the complexities associated with new financial
products.
The U.S. Treasury shattered investor confidence in the capital markets by permitting the collapse
of Lehman Brothers. Investors had assumed a too-big-to-fail policy would be supported by global
governments.
Accounting
In 2007, fair-value reporting was mandated for financial assets of all publicly traded U.S.
companies. Its implementation triggered massive bank write-downs of mortgage loans and
securities based on subjective valuations that many cite as causing or exacerbating the crisis.
To address this question, the unpredictable circumstances contributing to the storm must be identified.
During the past year many causes have been cited,
all of which can be classified into six general categories: questionable economic policies, weak bank
strategies, inappropriate derivative usage, mismanaged deregulation, lax oversight and new accounting
(Exhibit 2). The federal government provided the
fuel for the storm in several ways. First, the Federal
22
BANK ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
Reserve provided a low-interest-rate environment
that promoted home borrowing and increased real
estate values. In addition, both the Clinton and
Bush administrations encouraged credit extension
to marginal borrowers for expanded home ownership. This regular fuel became high-octane when
the government deregulated the financial services
industry in 1999, then exempted credit default swaps
from regulation and finally gave banks incentives to
APRIL–MAY 2010
Black Swan, Perfect Storm or Tipping Point?
invest in mortgage securities through relaxed capital
regulations (that is, the recourse rule).
The increasingly competitive and newly deregulated financial services industry highlighted the
weaknesses in big bank strategies. Forced to compete
almost exclusively on price given their homogeneous
product offerings, these institutions struggled with
how to differentiate themselves while stabilizing
deteriorating margins. Not surprisingly, they were
more than willing to help meet the market’s demand
for mortgage loans and were very receptive to any
new product offering that could create new revenues.
Option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), subprime
loans and the related securitization work seemed
to arrive just in time. The advent of credit default
swaps to enhance the credit quality of questionable
mortgage loan products—coupled with the huge
demand for highly rated securities by institutional
investors, foreign companies and governments and
hedge funds—eliminated any hesitancy to participate in sloppy mortgage lending.
A lack of oversight allowed this mortgage frenzy to
build. Credit rating agencies failed to evaluate collateralized debt products properly and often bestowed
their highest ratings even on the riskiest pools of
loans. Auditors and regulators also appeared to have
missed the risks inherent in these transactions due to
inexperience with complex financial instruments, a
“form-over-substance” perspective prevalent within
the accounting industry, and an unwillingness to
potentially disrupt the financial markets by issuing “negative” reports. In fact, at a recent academic
conference sponsored by a large global accounting
firm, the current director of the firm’s U.S. practice,
and former lead partner for the firm’s assurance
practice, noted that his firm “did not want to be so
conservative [in their accounting and auditing], so as
to disrupt the capital markets.”13 As if this were not
enough, in 2007 the Financial Accounting Standards
Board issued its fair-value reporting rule requiring
all publicly traded U.S. companies to report their
financial assets at fair value. This very subjective
and complex new standard was rolled out just as the
financial crisis was unfolding, prompting significant
mortgage asset write-downs. All of this helped build
the perfect storm.
But was this a perfect storm? As originally used,
the term “perfect storm” requires a confluence of
factors that together magnify the consequences of
APRIL–MAY 2010
each factor considered independently. Clearly, each
of the causal factors listed in Exhibit 2 would have
affected the global financial markets in some way.
What is less clear is whether the individual effects
of each would have all been negative. Even had
they been, it is difficult to imagine that the sum
of their individual outcomes would have come
close to approximating the financial catastrophe
witnessed in 2008. Would subprime lending and
mortgage securitization have been so voluminous
had economic policy been more restrictive and interest rates significantly higher? Would the negative
effects of mortgage security write-downs prompted
by poor underwriting and fair-value reporting be
so dramatic had deregulation not provided both
opportunities and incentives for banks to invest
in such assets? Would credit default swaps have
been such a problem had securitization of subprime
loans been significantly less?
While it appears that the financial market crisis
of 2008 may indeed have been a perfect storm,
the analogy seems to fail on one starkly simple
fact. The storm that battered the Andrea Gail in
1991 was a single natural event exacerbated by
other natural occurrences that could not have been
predicted or controlled. In the 2008 debacle, what
was the singular economic event whose intensity
was magnified by other market factors? There was
none. Instead, all of the factors listed in Exhibit
2 interacted with each other to create a financial
catastrophe. Therefore, the 2008 crisis was not the
result of a perfect storm.
Tipping Point
As for tipping point, Malcolm Gladwell, the term’s
creator, views this as the moment when an unfamiliar
idea or behavior crosses some imperceptible threshold and suddenly spreads with the “speed of a bush
fire.” Prior to the tipping point, many things may be
moving in that direction, unnoticed. At some point in
time they converge in a particular way to create a tipping point.14 In the case of our recent financial crisis,
what exactly was the tipping point? As with our perfect storm analysis, the tipping point is not obvious.
The tipping point may have occurred when the true
risks of investing in subprime-mortgage-backed securities manifested themselves. This likely occurred
in summer 2006 when the monthly average fixed rate
BANK ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
23
Black Swan, Perfect Storm or Tipping Point?
for a 30-year mortgage rose to 6.76 percent. These
higher rates quickly cooled off the mortgage market;
soon thereafter, property values began their decline.
Simultaneously, millions of ARMs and subprime
mortgages began to reset from their initial belowmarket teaser rates, causing loan delinquencies to
rise as home owner monthly mortgage payments
soared. Increasing loan defaults prompted mortgage
security investors to call in their insurance (credit
default swaps) if they had it. Some banks demanded
that the mortgage origination companies repurchase
the defaulting loans according to contractual agreements. Many of the larger loan originators, however,
lacked sufficient reserves to buy back the failing loans
from Wall Street investment banks. Investors that
relied exclusively on the AAA ratings to guide their
purchase decision found the market values of their
portfolios battered by credit-quality declines and
increasing interest rates. This all initiated a race to the
exit that appears to have started with the interest-rate
increases of mid-2006: the tipping point.
Observations
What can we learn from this exercise? Identifying
key crisis events and then distinguishing between
causal and exacerbating factors is critical. Separating causal factors from those that make a situation
worse is critical not only to developing appropriate
solutions but also to prevent expending resources
fighting the wrong battle. While many blame the
expansion of subprime lending for the recent crisis,
our analysis suggests that subprime lending by itself
could not have created a crisis of this magnitude, just
as an ordinary storm would not have doomed the
Andrea Gail. It took a low–interest rate environment,
a newly deregulated industry searching for innovative products and lax regulatory oversight to make
subprime lending the problem that it became. Therefore, recent legislation passed by the U.S. House of
Representatives, while well intentioned, may be
missing the mark. A proposed Consumer Financial
Protection Agency would write rules and examine
banks for compliance with consumer protection
policies on mortgages and other loan products.15
Presumably, this legislation would eradicate the evils
of subprime lending, but how will it affect lending
to economically disadvantaged groups and minorities? Have policy makers considered the potential
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BANK ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
adverse effects of ARMs, particularly teaser-rate
clauses, on borrowers with marginal credit quality?
Should financial institutions be allowed to transfer
their interest rate risk to the economically disadvantaged through ARMs? Perhaps fixed-rate mortgage
products would be more practical for those with
uncertain and/or inconsistent cash flow streams.
In short, have the side effects of the subprime cure
been fully assessed?
Similarly, many target derivatives as causing the
2008 meltdown. While it is true that credit default
swaps increased the demand for mortgage-backed
securities, particularly those backed by subprime
loans, these insurance contracts blew up only because the insuring parties did not establish adequate
loss reserves and could not deliver on their promises
to pay. This is no different than large property and
casualty insurers delaying or failing to pay claims
to policyholders related to the Katrina disaster.
Derivative contracts provide us with a tried and
tested, centuries-old risk management technique.
The dilemma is how to preserve these valuable tools,
while addressing the potential systemic risk these
financial instruments can create in our global capital
markets. Fortunately, initial congressional resistance
to derivatives use appears to have reversed itself. In
fact, the financial-overhaul bill passed by the House
of Representatives in December 2009, while still
imposing rules on how these financial instruments
are traded and cleared, is much less restrictive than
originally proposed.16
Nevertheless, legislative and regulatory attention
is warranted into how issuers of credit default swaps
(that is, the insuring party) compute and report related loss reserves.
Future Directions
Significant progress continues in addressing the
policy, regulatory and oversight issues associated
with the 2008 financial crisis. To address the economic policy crisis factors, Congress has proposed
stripping the Federal Reserve of its powers to
write consumer protection laws. It also plans on
“auditing” the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy
decisions.17 In addition, financial institution capital
standards continue to be revisited both domestically and internationally. Particular attention is
being paid to increasing risk weightings, asset/
APRIL–MAY 2010
Black Swan, Perfect Storm or Tipping Point?
liability limits based on the business model rather
than on simple capital ratios and contingent capital
and dynamic provisioning. As for oversight, rating agency reform proposals include “eliminating
conflicts of interest between agencies and issuers,
returning to an ‘investor-pays’ model, distinguishing between ratings of corporate debt and structured
financial products, and promoting new entrants to
the credit-rating business.”18 However, a significant
problem remains in the accounting domain: fairvalue reporting.
The Real Problem with
Fair Values
Although standard setters have issued additional
implementation guidance for fair-value reporting
subsequent to 2007, much of it stemming from
the crisis itself, little has been done to address the
flexibility that managements have in computing
fair values. In fact, Mark W. Olson, chairman of
the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
(PCAOB), has cited preparer bias as a major audit
challenge and fair-value accounting as a “heightened
audit risk.”19
The potential “problem values” are those associated with assets for which quoted market prices do
not exist. For these assets, managers can “create” values based on their own assumptions. Consequently,
fair-value accounting gives managers yet another
tool to manipulate balance sheets and reported earnings. In addition, fair values add a complexity to the
reporting process beyond the scope of most corporate accounting departments. Many companies now
outsource their valuation tasks to consultants who
likely do not fully understand their client’s business
model or the related valuation implications.
Also problematic is the lack of independent oversight over management’s valuation assumptions.
While regulators and investors undoubtedly will
look to a company’s independent auditor to verify
reported fair values, the recent financial crisis once
again raises questions about the ability of the largest
global accounting firms to provide effective oversight of reported fair values. How could the largest
global accounting firms (Big Four) fail to alert the
public of asset valuation problems that caused a
financial market to collapse?
APRIL–MAY 2010
It is no coincidence that the move to fair-value
accounting has occurred simultaneously with attempts by the Big Four to reduce their legal liabilities
for poor-quality audits. Unable to secure legislative relief in the United States through tort reform,
the Big Four have used their significant influence
to make generally accepted accounting principles
more subjective and judgmental. By doing so, they
reduce their exposure to future lawsuits since their
audits devolve into reviews of management valuation assumptions rather than the actual transaction
verification that the public expects. Clearly, the effectiveness of the independent auditor’s report has
been diminished by the move to fair-value reporting.
The result is a very dangerous situation in which the
incentives of both a reporting company and its auditor are now aligned in favor of fair-value reporting.
Companies favor it because they can create their own
values and manage earnings, and their auditors appreciate it because it is much more difficult to assess
audit quality where judgments are involved.
What makes this legislative and regulatory silence
on the fair-value accounting issue all the more
deafening is that in October 2008, the Department
of the Treasury issued a report filled with many
constructive recommendations on how to improve
the auditing profession. While many of the report’s
findings and solutions mirrored action calls made
during the past 30 years, the committee did make one
very important recommendation that specifically
recognized problems with today’s audits introduced
by fair-value reporting. The committee urged the
PCAOB to “consider improvements to the auditor’s
standard reporting model,” because of the increased
complexity in financial reporting resulting from the
growing use of judgments and estimates, including
those related to fair-value measurements. However,
no action has been taken on this recommendation.
As the Congress continues crafting legislative
and regulatory responses to our nation’s financial
crisis, lawmakers should consider supplementing
fair-value accounting with historical cost data.
Standard setters have attempted to compensate for
the lack of measurement objectivity of fair values
by requiring extensive disclosures of how such
amounts are derived. However, they have omitted any requirement that historical costs for these
fair-value assets also be reported. Supplementary
disclosure of historical cost could highlight major
BANK ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
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Black Swan, Perfect Storm or Tipping Point?
disparities between cost and fair value, potentially
mitigating management incentives to overstate fair
values or auditor overreliance on management or
consultant valuation assumptions. The strength of
this proposal is its simplicity. Moreover, it is easy to
adopt and relatively costless to the investing public
and the existing regulatory structure. This disclosure
will make a meaningful and lasting contribution
to improving financial reporting transparency and
ethical business decision making.
4
5
6
7
Nothing Special or Unusual
If the 2008 financial market crisis was neither a black
swan nor a perfect storm, what was it? Nothing special or unusual, according to Iain Martin:
8
9
10
At root, the causes of the financial crisis were boringly old-fashioned and predictable. An excess of
cheap money, pumped out for too long, inflated a
bubble and encouraged wild behavior on the part
of governments, financiers and many consumers.
The novelty came with the complex instruments
designed inside banks, which too few of those
using them properly understood.20
11
12
13
14
Increasingly, many appear to agree with Martin’s
perspective. In fact, Federal Reserve Bank officials
now openly refer to the recent financial crisis as the
burst of a “housing-and-credit bubble” and are actively pursuing regulatory and monetary strategies
for preventing such bubbles in the future.21
Clearly, much work must be done over the next
decade to reengineer our financial markets and their
supporting regimes to inoculate our global markets
against black swans, perfect storms and tipping
points. Nassim Taleb, the author of the The Black
Swan, warns that “this crisis cannot be fixed with
makeshift repairs.”22
Endnotes
1
2
3
See, for example, Jim Quinn, Black Swan Nation—Compliments
of Alan Greenspan, www.hermes-press.com/BlackSwanNation.htm,
May 13, 2009.
Alan Reinstein and Jeffery J. McMillan, The Enron Debacle: More
Than a Perfect Storm, CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING 15
(2004), at 955–70.
Robert J. Sack and Mark E. Haskins, Of Fiddlers and Tunes,
26
BANK ACCOUNTING & FINANCE
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
CPA J., June 2003, at 10.
See, for example, The Paradoxical Nature of Crisis, REV. BUSINESS , Fall 2000, www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/
print/73183462.html.
Roxanne Emmerich, Top 10 Workplace Dysfunctions—And How
to Terminate Them, AM. CHRONICLE, May 5, 2009, available at
www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/101452.
Allen Web, Taking Improbable Events Seriously: An Interview
with the Author of The Black Swan, MCKINSEY QUARTERLY, Dec.
2008, at 47.
Peter L. Bernstein, The Fantastic System of Side Bets, AGAINST
THE GODS (Wiley, 1996).
2002 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, at 15.
John Dunbar, Meltdown 101: Subprime Mortgages and the Road
to Financial Ruin, www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/economic_meltdown/articles/entry/1306/#, May 6, 2009.
See, for example, Manav Tanneeru, How a “Perfect Storm” Led
to the Economic Crisis, www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/29/economic.
crisis.explainer/index.html.
Id.
Simon Hooper, Putin: Financial Crisis is “Perfect Storm,” http://
edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/01/28/davos.wef.wedsnesday.
wrap/index.html.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Educators Symposium, New York,
NY, Aug. 2009.
The Tipping Point, 366 ECONOMIST 8305 (Jan. 4, 2003), at 48.
Damian Paletta and Robin Sidel, House Strikes at Wall Street,
WALL ST.J., http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126055726422487665.
html, Dec. 14, 2009.
Randall Smith and Sarah N. Lynch, How Overhauling Derivatives Died, WALL ST. J., http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142
4052748704718204574616470817688220.html, Dec. 28, 2009.
Supra note 13.
Future of Finance, WALL ST. J., Special Edition, Dec. 14, 2009,
available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487048
25504574585990301357738.
Mark W. Olson, Chairman of the Public Company Accounting
Oversight Board, remarks at the Annual Washington Conference of the Institute for International Bankers, www.pcaobus.
org/News_and_Events/Events/2008/Speech/03-03_Olson.aspx,
Mar. 3, 2008.
Iain Martin, Farewell to a Decade of Debt and Disaster, WALL ST.
J., http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870439830457
4598350918417532.html, Dec. 15, 2009.
Jon Hilsenrath, Fed Debates New Role: Bubble Fighter, WALL ST.
J., http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125970281466871707.html,
Dec. 2, 2009.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Ten Principles for a Black Swan-ProofWorld, FIN’L TIMES, Apr. 8, 2009, at 13.
APRIL–MAY 2010
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