The Worst And The Dimmest

From The "best and the brightest"? Spare me by Michael Lind:

"Is President Obama trying to kill Wall Street and drive its talent to London?" asked one blogger, Scott Reeves. Scott Talbott, head of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, has warned that "top salespeople, the lifeblood of any company" could be driven by TARP restrictions to work for overseas banks.

Where will the best and the brightest of the financial sector flee, to get away from regulation and earn obscenely high salaries? Not Canada, where tight regulation of banks prevented the kind of meltdown that has occurred in the U.S. Nor Australia, where similar strict banking regulations also spared that country's financial sector. London, Singapore or Dubai are sometimes mentioned as possible rival financial centers that would be eager to welcome the kind of overpaid financiers who wrecked the U.S. and global economy. Most Americans, I think, would agree that it is worth the risk. The voluntary expatriation of leading Wall Street geniuses might help to restore the U.S. economy and wreck potential rival financial capitals at the same time. The thought brings to mind the observation by a wag on the defection in the 1970s by John Connally from the Democrats to the Republicans: "He raised the IQ of both parties."