Idiot Wind

“You didn’t know it, you didn’t think it could be done, in the final end he won the war
After losin’ every battle”

Idiot Wind, Bob Dylan.

The line never made much sense to me until the financial crisis unfolded. For the first time I saw a situation where winning every battle can snuff out your oxygen, stop the fires of your accumulated success from burning on. Are not the financial institutions winning every battle at such costs to the economy upon which they feast, that they are bound to destroy themselves? If they further insist on winning every battle, they will lose the war. If they insist on winning, they will lose. They depend on the economy. The economy does not depend on them.

Idiot Wind is the perfect song for the financial crisis.