Weekend Musings.

"The uncoordinated approach to the financial crisis leaves us like King Canute, trying to put his finger in the dam." (Larry Summers, former US Treasury Secretary, former President of Harvard University, and now Professor at the university). [In case you don't know of King Canute, he was a Dane who took over England in the 11th century, and is famed for a story of how he set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes; but the tide failed to stop, and he used this to show the powerlessness of kings. The finger in the dam/dyke imagery is supposedly a Dutch story, known as the legend of Hans Brinker, who put his finger in a dyke for a whole night to stop the water coming through to flood Haarlem; it was actually a literary invention by the 19th century American writer Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge.]

"So much wealth has been destroyed that people will only be buying Treasury bills and bottled water." (Paul Krugman, famed Princeton economist)

"There are three reasons why companies go out of business and individuals go out of business: No. 1 is arrogance, No. 2 is arrogance and No. 3 is arrogance." (Haryey Mackay, chairman and CEO of Minneapolis-based MackayMitchell Envelope Co. and author of "Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive'' and "Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt.'').

Speaking of the failure of Dick Fuld, former CEO of now bankrupt Lehman Brothers, and former CEO of AIG Martin Sullivan, to accept responsibility for their firms' failures, Mackay added:

"They all have chapped lips from kissing the mirror too much.''