Tweakmore’s revised scheme worked fantastically well for a considerable period. Naturally, there were some glitches, but Tweakmore turned each glitch into an opportunity to boost profit. For instance, when Wantmore was made nervous as hordes of scumball salesmen were drawn into his business by rich commissions paid for production of easy-to-sell ”subprime” pay-what-you-wish home loans, Tweakmore responded by buying Wantmore’s business. Then Tweakmore replaced Wantmore with a new CEO, Totalscum, who did not consider any business practice optimal unless it was depraved. Totalscum soon increased loan production by 400%, and his success caused Tweakmore to buy five additional loan businesses and replace their CEOs with people like Totalscum, causing profits to soar and soar, even though Twealtmore never again found anyone else whose depraved operations could produce results that matched those of Totalscum.

As Tweakmore’s scheme went on, it was necessary for its continuing success that the accountants of Boneheadia never stop treating as trustworthy a lot of hugely important loan- payment promises that any sensible person would deem unreliable. However, there was almost no risk that accountants would act otherwise than as Tweakmore desired. The accountants of Boneheadia were not allowed to be sensible, They had to use by rote “rules—based” accounting standards set by a dominating man, Countwrong, who was head of Boneheadia’s Accounting standards Setting Board. And Countwrong had ordained, in effect, that all loss provisions on the new loans must remain based on the zero-loss record that had existed before Wantmore met Tweakmore. And, so long as Countwrong was in charge, no one was going to use in accounting an understanding of runaway feedback modes, instead of Countwrong’s rules.

Of course, if Totalscum or Tweakmore ever started to have loan losses, he would have to start making loan-loss provisions against new loans. But there weren’t any meaningful loan losses for anyone for a very long time. Countwrong was so habit—bound as a thinker that he never recognized that his cognition was anti—social. He had always sought simplicity of process for accountants at the expense of “principles—based” rigor in thought that would better serve his country. He had been rewarded in life for his convictions, and he was now proud of his conclusions, even as they were contributing mightily to the supercatastrophe sure to come eventually from Tweakmore’s scheme. A large economic boom occurred in Boneheadia just as Tweakmore had expected. The boom made the regulators of Boneheadia feel extremely good about themselves as they passively watched the ever—enlarging operations of Tweakmore and Totalscum. A famous regulator named Oblivious was particularly approving. He had been over influenced in early life by classical economics. So influenced, Oblivious loved all the new derivatives, even those based on outcomes of parts of complex CDOs composed of parts of other complex CDOs. And he did not believe the government should rein in any investment banker until the banker’s behavior was very much worse than Tweakmore’s. The boom initiated by Tweakmore lasted only three years. He had underestimated the boom’s strength and the power of people to understand, in due course, super-sized folly. These factors had helped shorten the boom’s duration. Also, Boneheadia had proved less like Japan than had been hoped.

When the hoom—ending bust came, it was a doozy, Almost every investment bank had been made collapse-prone by Tweakmore’s innovations before he became interested in home loans. And now, in a huge bust, most big financial institutions were sure to disappear, causing total chaos and another “Great Depression” unless there was super—massive intervention by the government, financed by printing money. Fortunately, Buneheadia did so intervene, guided by effective leaders who somehow obtained support from politicians in both political parties. And, after this massive intervention, Boneheadia, with doubled unemployment, is enormously worse off than if the boom and bust had never happened. And its options in case offuture trouble are greatly reduced because, after its money-printing spree, it is nearer to facing general distrust of its money and credit. Boneheadia’s bust is now called the “Great Recession”. Yet, even so, not much has been learned by the ellte in Boneheadia. Among the protagonists and too—passive types who contributed so much to the mess, only one has expressed significant contrition. To his great credit, Oblivious has recognized that he was grossly wrong. The accounting profession remains unaware of its large contribution to public woe. And it does not recognize the cognitive defects of Countwrong, which are still believed to be virtuous qualities that reduce accountants’ litigation risks and their duty to cause antagonism by opposing the wishes of some of their best-paying clients.

The professoriate in economics has barely budged toward recognition of the importance of optimized, more conservative accounting in both macroeconomic: and microeconomics. And economics professors, even now, do not recognize what was so easily recognized by Tweakmore: the functional equivalent of undisclosed embezzlement can be magnified and have massive macroeconomic consequences when the victims, as well as the perpetrators, are led to believe they are getting richer under conditions that are going to last for a long time, How about the legislators in Boneheadia? Well, most are confused by what has happened to their most powerful friends and draw no useful implications from the outcome of Canadia, a country just north of Boneheadia that had no “Great Recession” because its simple laws and regulations kept in place home loan operations much like those of Wantmore before he embraced modern finance in the state preferred by Tweakmore.

How about the regulators? Well, very few important regulators or former regulators in all Boneheadia have expressed really serious doubts about the status quo and interest in really serious re-regulation of investment banking. One of the doubters is Follyseer, a long—retired former Minister of Finance. Follyseer has argued that all the contributions of Tweakmore to investment banking should now be removed and banned, because it is now obvious that (1) augmenting casino-type activities in investment banks was never a good idea, and (2) investment banks are less likely to cause vast public damage when they are forbidden to use much financial leverage and are limited to few long-traditional activities. Regarding accounting, no regulator now in power seems to understand, in a way that has any chance of causing effective remedial action, that the disaster triggered by Tweakmore couldn’t have happened if Boneheadia’s system of accounting regulation had been more ”principles—based,” with a different and less tradition-bound group creating accounting standards that were less easy to game.

The former regulator and life-long professor who seemed extra wise aher the Great Recession was England’s John Maynard Keynes, dead for more than half a century. Keynes had predicted, correctly, that “When the capital development of a country ls a by product of the operations of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.

Charlie Munger