Crisis Probe Bares Fools' Guilt-Free Fantasy

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hasn't extracted admissions of wrongdoing from top bankers, but it has exposed stunning cluelessness among the captains of American finance, writes Paul Krugman. The honchos testified that a financial crisis is something that just happens from time to time, Krugman writes in the New York Times.

Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd Blankfein went so far as to compare the crisis to a hurricane that nobody could have predicted, Krugman writes. But it's obvious to everybody except the bankers that it was caused by the deregulation that dismantled protections aimed to stave off such a crisis, he notes. Those seeking to reform the system to prevent another meltdown should "ignore advice coming from the supposed wise men of Wall Street, who have no wisdom to offer," Krugman writes.