Michael Jackson, a surprise casualty of Lehman Brothers
"If only Lehman had been saved and the stock market had not tanked, Michael Jackson would not have needed to commit to those 50 comeback gigs in London. He would not have felt so stressed and would not have taken all those sedatives. If only Lehman had been saved, Jacko would still be alive." The Financial Times: Why a Lehman deal would not have saved us by Niall Ferguson.
This is very funny, but will it lead to more grief for the brilliant historian? After all, back on 10 August Ferguson wrote in the Financial Times that "President Barack Obama reminds me of Felix the Cat. One of the best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, Felix was not only black. He was also very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th president of the US..." For this, he was assailed by James Fallows in The Atlantic and accused of racism by association in the Huffington Post. But as he courageously said in his response, "The piece made an important point about the biggest threat to Obama's presidency: the seemingly uncontrollable deficit. That's the issue the Huffington Post should be focusing on, not politically correct claptrap."
It takes a brave man to say that today.
