The deepening financial crisis in America reminds me of how so many smart people who thought they had everything under control guided so many other people and institutions off the edge of a cliff, just like lemmings. This came vividly to mind as I read the following excerpt from a new book by John Ortberg.
“Smart people mess up as easily as the rest of us. Three men are in a plane: a pilot, a Boy Scout, and the world’s smartest man. The engine fails, the plane is going down, and there are only two parachutes. The smart man grabs one. ‘I’m sorry about this,’ he says, ‘but I’m the smartest man in the world. I have a responsibility to the planet,’ and he jumps out of the plane.”
“The pilot turns to the Boy Scout and speaks of how he has lived a long, full life and how the Boy Scout has his whole life in front of him. He tells the Boy Scout to take the last parachute and live. ‘Relax, Captain,’ the Boy Scout says. ‘The world’s smartest man just jumped out of the plane with my backpack.’”
There is a message in this about all those smart guys who were pumping up the financial bubble to the point of bursting: Some of them are now in Washington advising the President and Congress.
‘Nuff said.
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