The Boswell of the Bailout

Writers are typically among the greatest profiteers of economic turmoil. So why aren’t today’s novelists picking over Wall Street’s bones? The Observer’s William Skidelsky wonders in a smart piece. “[T]he 21st-century Masters of the Universe have remained stubbornly absent from fiction,” Skidelsky writes, and one has to wonder why. Well, for one thing, today’s financial goings-on may be too complex for your average beach reader. Second, one must consider whether the writer is merely living up to his historic role: the world’s lousiest businessman. If you had to find one person less competent than Dick Fuld…