Surowiecki: The Wisdom of Dumbed-Down

As would befit the good captain of an ever-churning finance blog, my colleague Felix recommends a more sophisticated sub-prime explanation than that offered by the lowly MSN.

Jack Flack, on the other hand, felt a strong pull in the opposite direction when he read James Surowiecki's lede in the current New Yorker. A bona fide smart-guy, Surowiecki sums up the situation with beautifully dumbed-down language:

"The havoc on Wall Street following the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market boils down to a simple truth: for years, lots of very smart people took lots of very foolish risks, betting borrowed billions on dubious mortgage derivatives, and eventually the odds caught up with them."

What's the attraction? The best flacks excel at translating business talk into language that civilians (or even non-beat reporters) can understand. Such translations almost always produce over-simplifications. And while some over-simplifications mislead, many others reveal the heart of the matter.