Top 100 Albums of the 2000s

Volume 7 : Albums 31-40

	31 / Tv On The Radio / Return To Cookie Mountain / 2005 One of the most consistent bands of the decade, and their second full length record shows off the impressive variety of styles they incorporate into their unique sound. Best Track – Blues From Down Here
	32 / Jamie T. / Panic Prevention / 2007 Maybe the best brit pop record of all time. Half the songs could be hit singles. Some of the lyrics don’t make sense, but it’s not his fault, after all he’s English. Best Track – Back In The Game
	33 / Gnarls Barkley / St. Elswhere / 2006 A collaboration between Danger Mouse and Cee-lo. Neo Soul mixed with Ennio Morricone infused r&b, made Danger Mouse a style maker for the rest of decade. Best Track – Crazy
	34 / Dizzee Rascal / Boy in da Corner / 2003 Most grime was a disposable novelty, but Dizzee brought something new and something old back into hip-hop. An evolutionary step that will likely be forgotten. Best Track – Fix Up, Look Sharp
	35 / Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson / Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson / 2008 Backed by members of Grizzly Bear, and produced by David Sitek, I can’t believe know one has heard this incredible singer/songwriter. Best Track – Woodfriend
	36 / Pleasure Forever / Alter / 2003 The words goth rock make me shudder, but this SF trio released an album that made me reconsider everything knew about rock. Best Track – Czarina
	37 / Danger Mouse & Jemini / Ghetto Pop Life / 2003 Before anyone knew who Danger Mouse was, he released this hip-hop masterpiece with Chicago mc Jemini and guests. Killer beats and killer ryhmes. Best Track – Take Care Of Business
	38 / Grizzly Bear / Yellow House / 2006 Indie folk blown up to epic proportions. Far more focused than their debut, Grizzly Bear created a sound often imitated, but never replicated. Best Track – Colorado
	39 / LCD Soundsystem / LCD Soundsystem / 2005 DFA was the sound of dance punk, producing most of the relevant act in the scene, this is his debut, full of amazing singles. Best Track – Tribulations
	40 / The Go! Team / Thunder, Lightning, Strike / 2004 A hodgepodge of pop, rock and r&b topped off with double dutch vocals. Still sounds fresh even though it sounds like it was recorded on cassette. Best Track – Junior Kickstart

Top 100 Albums of the 2000’s

Volume 6 : Albums 41-50

	41 / Wolf Parade / Apologies To Queen Mary / 2005 Produced by Isaac Brock, Wolf Parade blows away every Modest Mouse record. An incredible balance between the very complex, and the painfully simple. Best Track – I’ll Believe In Anything
	42 / Radiohead / In Rainbows / 2007 Radiohead may have been the band of the previous decade, but after a couple disapointing realeases, they self released what maybe their strongest album. Best Track – Bodysnatchers
	43 / Islands / Return To The Sea / 2006 Emering out of the ashes of the Unicorns, Islands set the stage for the afro-pop revival at the tail end of the deacade. Almost every song has its own style. Best Track – Volcanoes
	44 / The Libertines / Up The Bracket / 2002 Possibly the most important British debut since The Clash, The Libertines set up the return of brit pop, which dominated the UK charts for the rest of the decade. Best Track – Death On The Stairs
	45 / Joanna Newsom / The Milk-Eyed Mender / 2004 A whimsical adventure that feels like it should be accompanied by a childrens novel. Utterly unique. Best Track – Sprout and the Bean
	46 / Gorillaz / Gorillaz / 2001 The first step in Damon Albarn re-envisionment as a solo artist, Gorillaz was an amazing collaboration that showed what music could be like in the new decade. Best Track – Clint Eastwood
	47 / Stars / Set Yourself On Fire / 2005 Another Canadian indie pop collective delivers the goods on their third album, sometimes a bit too giddy, but it’s hard to imagine more intelligent pop music. Best Track – One More Night
	48 / A Sunny Day In Glasgow / Scribble Mural Comic Journal / 2007 Beautiful ambient pop music from Philadelphia. It’s kinda like chaotic shoegaze, but far better than any noise pop rivals. Best Track – Our Change Into Rain Is No Change At All
	49 / The Streets / Original Pirate Material / 2002 The Falco of the 2000’s. A mixture of pop, dance, and hip-hop and sharp lyrics made Mike Skinner a star in the UK, doesn’t really sound like anything else. Best Track – Weak Become Heroes
	50 / The Walkmen / Bows + Arrows / 2004 One of the mainstays of the New York post-punk scene, varying between mellow and up tempo, what joy division might have sounded like if they listened to Bob Dylan. Best Track – Thinking Of A Dream

Top 100 Albums of the 2000’s

Volume 5 : Albums 51-60

	51 / Peter, Bjorn and John / Writer’s Block / 2007 The preponderance of the single Young Folks makes the rest of this album overlooked. It’s almost like a history of pop in the last 40 years, and of course, they’re Swedes. Best Track – Lets Call The Whole Thing Off
	52 / Aesop Rock / Labor Days / 2001 Aesop Rock is one of the best MC of the decade, continuing in Del’s west coast style, but the beats are way better than anything Del’s done recently. Best Track – 9-5ers Anthem
	53 / Metallic Falcons / Desert Doughnuts / 2006 About as spaced out as a record can get, but it’s haunting like a bad dream. Widely overlooked. Best Track – Four Hearts
	54 / Hot Hot Heat / Make Up The Breakdown / 2002 Sounding like The Cure on speed, Hot Hot Heat’s debut is as scorching as their name implies. Their first EP is killer as well. Best Track – Talk To Me, Dance With Me
	55 / Lykke Li / Youth Novels / 2008 With songwriting help from Björn Yttling, Lykke Li delivered one of the most irresistible and original pop records of the decade. Best Track – I’m Good, I’m Gone
	56 / Constantines / Tournament Of Hearts / 2005 A hybrid of Fugazi and Springsteen, the Constantines tightened up their sound and shortened the track list to produce their best album. Best Track – Love In Fear
	57 / Bon Iver / For Emma, Forever Ago / 2008 Justin Vernon recorded this album in isolation in Wisconsin, and it definitely comes through on the record. Ridiculously good. Best Track – Skinny Love
	58 / Danger Mouse / The Grey Album / 2004 This unofficial release is the best thing Jay-Z has ever done, and he didn’t have anything to do with it. If the Beatles were around today they probably be collaborating with Jay-Z and Kanye anyway. Best Track – Encore
	59 / B.R.M.C. / Howl / 2005 After a disapointing sophmore record, BRMC reenvisioned themselves as retro-americana rockers. One of the biggest surprises of the decade. Best Track – Shuffle Your Feet
	60 / M.I.A. / Arular / 2005 Spawned hundreds of hipster-hop imitators. An amalgam of many different styles became one of the signature sounds of the decade. Best Track – Hombre

Top 100 Albums of the 2000’s

Volume 4 : Albums 61-70

	61 / Sigur-Ros / Takk… / 2005 Might not be as perfect as Agaetis Byrjun, but to be honest I listen to this record a lot more. Maybe no one makes more beautiful or more emotional music. Best Track – Saeglopur
	62 / El-P / I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead / 2007 Meticulously crafted record is the hip-hop equivalent of Mars Volta, who naturally guest along with Trent Reznor, perhaps Trail of Dead will be on his next record. Best Track – The Overly Dramatic Truth
	63 / Beirut / Gulag Orkestar / 2006 Riding the wave of world music infusion into indie rock, this eastern european folk influenced record has a timeless quality to it. Best Track – Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)
	64 / The Dismemberment Plan / Change / 2000 The final record from "The Plan" was their most polished blending of their eclectic style. Best Track – Time Bomb
	65 / Ratatat / Classics / 2006 Ratatat really figured out their sound on their second album, some of the most entertaining intsrumental pop music. Best Track – Kennedy
	66 / Rival Schools / United By Fate / 2001 A post-hardcore record that defines what emo was before it became whatever it is now. This New York collective on released one record, almost as good as Fugazi. Best Track – Holding Sand
	67 / Arctic Monkeys / Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not / 2006 The Monkeys defined the sound of brit-pop in second half of the decade, as much as The Libertines defined the first half. Best Track – From The Ritz To The Rubble
	68 / King Geedorah / Take Me To Your Leader / 2003 Doom produced this monster movie inspired side project, which is a little more bizarre than his other solo work, and that’s saying something. Best Track – Anti-Matter
	69 / Beck / Guero / 2005 A renunion with the Dust Brothers heralded a return to the style that made Beck so successful in the 90s. Best Track – Go It Alone
	70 / The Shins / Oh, Inverted World / 2001 Spawned hundreds of imitators, but nothing sounds quite like The Shins debut. This record can still change your life. Best Track – Caring Is Creepy

Top 100 Albums of the 2000’s

Volume 3 : Albums 71-80

	71 / The Lovely Feathers / Hind Hind Legs / 2006 Post-hardcore pop music, why do only Canadians play this style? Amazingly good, and there’s a track named Rod Stewart. Best Track – Frantic
	72 / Modest Mouse / The Moon & Antarctica / 2000 Paving the way for indie bands to reach commercial success, Modest Mouse found their formula for success on this record. Best Track – I Came As A Rat
	73 / Dirty Projectors / Bitte Orca / 2009 After several sprawling and incosistent albums, and Black Flag covers record, Dirty Projectors pull it all together for one of the most original indie releases of the decade. Best Track – Two Doves
	74 / Burial / Untrue / 2006 This reclusive UK dubstep producer makes extremely polarizing music, but this is the dubstep record. Best Track – Etched Headplate
	75 / Edan / Primitive Plus / 2002 Edan runs beats, the turntables, and the mike, and kills it on all three on this self produced ode to late 80’s hip-hop. Best Track – Rapperfection
	76 / The Last Shadow Puppets / The Age Of The Understatement / 2008 Brit pop with an orchestra, should be a disaster, but ended up one of the most interesting albums of the decade. Best Track – My Mistakes Were Made For You
	77 / Lupe Fiasco / Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor / 2006 If Kanye was really that great, he would have released this record. Stylisticly consistent and intelgent hip-hop. Best Track – The Emperor’s Soundtrack
	78 / The Fiery Furnaces / Gallowsbird’s Bark / 2003 Mathew Freidberger write some of the most bizarre pop music you’ll ever come across, not all gems, but it’s always an interesting listen. Best Track – I’m Gonna Run
	79 / The Dodos / Visiter / 2008 Two piece band equally inspired by African Drumming and country blues fingerpicking. Unusually Good. Best Track – Ashley
	80 / Coldplay / A Rush Of Blood To The Head / 2002 There’s a million reasons to deny their critical and commercial success, but Coldplay was at their high water mark on this record. Best Track – God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

Top 100 Albums of the 2000’s

Volume 2 : 81-90

	81 / Liars / Drums Not Dead / 2006 Comming off like the worst acid trip you’ve ever had, this is Liars at their conceptual best. Don’t listen to this on hard drugs. Best Track – The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack
	82 / M83 / Saturdays = Youth / 2008 One of the best electronic acts of the 00’s, and one of the few worth seeing live. Moster 80’s style ballads complete with Phil Collins drums. Best Track – Kim & Jessie
	83 / Spoon / Girls Can Tell / 2000 After struggling with Elektra, Spoon moved to Merge, and released their first great record. Brilliant Songs from the best band of the decade. Best Track – Take A Walk
	84 / Clem Snide / Ghost of Fashion / 2001 Essentially the dorkiest record of the decade, designed to make band geeks everywhere smile. Best Track – Moment In The Sun
	85 / Cymbals Eat Guitars / Why There Are Mountains / 2009 A retrospective of 90’s indie rock with 00’s style, expect a lot of 90’s revival in the next decade. Absolutley Monster tracks on this record. Best Track – Wind Phoenix (Proper Name)
	86 / The White Stripes / Get Behind Me Satan / 2005 The White Stripes released a lot of great material this decade, but this is their most cohesive and conceptual record. Best Track – The Denial Twist
	87 / The Knife / Silent Shout / 2006 Early in the synth wave that has dominated the end of thsi decade. Karin Dreijer’s give this record a really ominous feel. Best Track – We Share Our Mothers’ Health
	88 / Vampire Weekend / Vampire Weekend / 2008 Maybe the most hyped record since the The Strokes debut. Vampire Weekend somehow make sense out of their Upper West Side Soweto. Great pop songs. Best Track – M79
	89 / Menomena / Friend and Foe / 2007 One of the best indie bands of the deacade, they didn’t release a lot of material, but they nail every track on this record. Best Track – The Pelican
	90 / Mastodon / Leviathan / 2004 Conceptual masterpiece from one the most essential metal bands of the decade. Best Track – Megalodon

Top 100 Albums of the 2000’s

Volume 1 : 91-100

	91 / Cursive / The Ugly Organ / 2003 Cursive’s records have always been deeply personal mountains of emotion, and Ugly Organ is rife with Tim Kasher’s post divorce angst. There’s a thousand idea’s on this record, making it Cursive’s most interesting. Best Track – Sierra
	92 / Queens of the Stone Age / Rated R / 2000 QofSA’s interscope debut is their best record, and maybe their most collaborative work. They are at their creative peak, before line up changes ruined the band’s chemistry. Best Track – Feel Good Hit of the Summer
	93 / Roisin Murphy / Overpowered / 2007 Formely of Moloko, Roisin Murphy hasn’t made much of a splash stateside, but she’s realeased two excellent pop albums this decade. Almost every track on Overpowered could be a single, and her 80’s glam pop style really shines. Best Track – Dear Miami
	94 / Minus Story / The Captain Is Dead, Let The Drum Corpse Dance / 2004 A really dynamic psychedelic pop record in the vein of the Elephant 6 bands of the 90’s. It’s only eight tracks long, but they play out like an orchestral pop epic. Best Track – Gravity Pulls
	95 / Broken Social Scene / Feel Good Lost / 2000 The evolution of KC Accidental into a refined debut as Broken Social Scene. Mostly instrumentals, but all immaculately crafted masterpieces. Best Track – Guilty Cubicles
	96 / The Delgados / The Great Eastern / 2000 Not as loved as fellow scotts, Belle & Sebastian, but the Delgados produced this indie-folk pop gem. The Great Eastern moves deftly from minimalist moments to blown out indie epics. Best Track – Thirteen Gliding Principles
	97 / Ulirch Schnauss / A Strangely Isolated Place / 2003 Schnauss is a somewhat enigmatic producer from Germany, and on this record he moves away from techno by seamlessly blending it with shoegaze to create some wonderful bliss filled tracks. Best Track – On My Own
	98 / Thersea Andersson / Hummingbird, Go! / 2008 Somehow the Swedes have the pop thing totally figured out, and this home recorded singer songwriter mixes many influences on Hummingbord, Go! Some tracks are perfect pop gems, while others could soundtrack some unwritten movie. Best Track – Innan Du Gar
	99 / Bloc Party / Silent Alarm / 2005 Riding the wave of post-punk revialism that started at the begining of the decade, Bloc Party’s debut delivered more emotion and energy than most of the other bands in the scene. Best Track – Like Eating Glass
	100 / The Octopus Project / One Ten Hundred Thousand Million / 2004 One of the most energetic instrumental records of the decade, veering from krautrock to elctronic to jazz influenced rock. Best Track – The Adjustor

College Football Top 25

	11/15/09	W/L	H/L	+/-	WR	Confrence	Last Week
1	Texas	10-0	1/4	NC	6	BIG12	RW Baylor
2	Alabama	10-0	1/2	NC	6	SEC	RW Mississippi State
3	Florida	10-0	2/3	NC	6	SEC	RW South Carolina
4	Ohio State	9-2	4/16	+2	6	BIG 10	HW Iowa
5	Texas Christian	10-0	5/16	+2	6	MWC	HW Utah
6	Cincinnati	10-0	4/10	-2	6	BIG EAST	HW West Virginia
7	Boise State	10-0	7/11	+1	6	WAC	HW Idaho
8	Georgia Tech	10-1	8/20	+7	6	ACC	RW Duke
9	Pittsburgh	9-1	9/NR	+7	5	BIG EAST	HW Notre Dame
10	Penn State	9-2	4/10	NC	6	BIG 10	HW Indiana
11	Oregon	8-2	11/15	+2	6	PAC 10	HW Arizona State
12	Iowa	9-2	6/12	NC	6	BIG 10	RL Ohio State
13	Virginia Tech	7-3	3/13	-4	6	ACC	RW Maryland
14	Lousiana State	8-2	13/14	NC	6	SEC	RW Louisiana Tech
15	Southern California	7-3	4/15	-10	6	PAC 10	HL Stanford
16	Miami	7-3	7/16	-5	6	ACC	RL North Carolina
17	Oklahoma	6-4	8/17	NC	6	BIG 12	HW Texas A&M
18	Stanford	7-3	18/NR	NR	1	PAC 10	RW Southern California
19	Oklahoma State	8-2	16/19	NC	6	BIG 12	HW Texas Tech
20	West Virginia	7-3	18/21	-2	6	BIG EAST	RL Cincinnati
21	Houston	8-2	18/25	-1	6	C-USA	RL Central Florida
22	Utah	8-2	22/NR	NC	3	MWC	RL Texas Christian
23	Brigham Young	8-2	18/23	NC	6	MWC	RW New Mexico
24	Wisconsin	8-2	24/NR	NR	2	BIG 10	HW Michigan
25	Clemson	7-3	25/NR	NR	1	ACC	RW North Carolina State

Rich Rod

This Saturday the Michigan Wolverines host the Ohio State Buckeyes in what many consider the biggest rivalry in sports. However, it hasn’t been much of a rivalry this decade, Ohio State is 7-2 over that span, Jim Tressel has only lost once to the Wolverines, and the Buckeyes has rolled off five straight victories. Lloyd Carr was fired as Michigan’s head coach after the 2007 season because of his inability to beat Ohio State. Carr coached his last game, a Capitol One Bowl victory against heavily favored Florida, with his replacement already hired, and wandering the sidelines at the game. Lloyd Carr had tried to get his defensive coordinator Ron English to be the next head coach, just as he and his predecessor Gary Moeller had been promoted from within the program. The university was split, many trustee’s wanted new blood to lead the football program, but Carr had been part of the coaching staff for almost thirty years, and had many entrenched supporters. Eventually English was ruled out, and Les Miles emerged as their favorite candidate, who had coached under Michigan legend Bo Schembechler and Gary Moeller. However, Miles was the head coach at LSU, and was preparing for the BCS title game against Michigan foe Ohio State while the coaching search was underway. At one point ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstriet reported that Miles had agreed to become the Michigan head coach before LSU had played in the title game, but this was false, and led to a vitriolic rebuttal from Miles. Les Miles parleyed Michigan’s interest in him into a huge new contract from LSU, and ended up winning the BCS title game. With a public refusal from their first choice, Michigan’s coaching search was in disarray, and they quickly turned to West Virginia head coach Rich Rodrigeuz. The previous season Rodrigeuz had publicly flirted with Alabama, and was rumored to be a candidate for Miami’s vacant head coaching position. Rodrigeuz elected to stay at West Virginia when the University agreed to renovate football facilities, and renegotiate his contract to make his compensation more competitive with other top coaches. In 2007 West Virginia raced out of the gates, and if the Mountaineers had defeated Pittsburgh in their season finale they would have played Ohio State in the BCS title game instead of Miles’ LSU Tigers. Fifteen days after the Pittsburgh loss Rodrigeuz announced he was leaving the program immediately for the Head Coaching job at Michigan, and he would not coach the Mountaineers in the Fiesta Bowl. West Virginia blew out the Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl with interim head coach Bill Stewart. On the same day Rich Rodrigeuz was wandering the sidelines at the Capitol One Bowl, mingling with players and university alumni, and avoiding both Lloyd Carr and Ron English. As bizarre a beginning that was Rich Rodrigeuz at Michigan, it has probably been the high point of his tenure with the program. West Virginia had already filed suit against Rodrigeuz for breach of contract, he had signed his contract extension only four months earlier, and had agreed to clause that penalized him $4 million if he left the university within the year. Rodrigeuz refused to pay, and was subsequently sued again, which was finally settled when the University of Michigan agreed to pay $2.5 million, and Rodrigeuz would be responsible for the remaining $1.5. Many alumni had publicly voiced their opposition to his hiring, and questioned weather his offensive style would work at Michigan. Even worse was the negative reaction among the current players, many players refused to show up for their introduction to Rodrigeuz, and an exodus of players from the program began. Projected starting quarterback Ryan Mallett immediately transfered to Arkansas, and both starting wide-receivers entered the NFL Draft early along with several other players. The Most surprising was starting guard Justin Boren transfer to arch rival Ohio State, citing a “lack of family values” from the new coaching staff. All that was before Rodrigeuz even took the field as Michigan’s Head Coach. The 2008 season started with a home loss to Utah, and after a 2-2 start the Wolverines finished the season 3-8 missing a bowl berth for the first time in 33 years. The season was a disaster, Michigan only won two home games, only won two Big Ten games, and was punctuated by a blow out loss to Ohio State to give the Buckeyes their fourth straight Big Ten Title. The team struggled to make plays, Rodrigeuz’s sideline demeanor was frantic and over emotional, and the team fell apart down the strech. The Offseason brought in a new class of recruits supposedly more adept at Rodrigeuz’s style of offense, but Michigan lost many of their key defensive players, and there were several more transfers, including starting quarterback Steven Threet. Right before the beginning of the 2009 season several former players spoke publicly about Rodrigeuz’s staff violating NCAA rules on practices and work out hours. Rodrigeuz denied any such violations in a predictably tear filled press conference. The NCAA has sent a letter to the Michigan Athletic Department indicating that there is enough evidence to warrant a full investigation, and it has recently come out that work out logs are either missing or were not kept at all. The season started surprisingly well with four straight victories, Rodrigeuz found a quarterback in Tate Forcier, and even though the defense struggled the Wolverines were finally putting points on the board. The Wolverines were even ranked as high #20 after a week four shoot out with Indiana in their Big Ten opener. Michigan lost two road games in a row, Michigan State and Iowa, then beat Delaware State at home to reach 5-2, one victory away from bowl eligibility. But Michigan has not won since, dropping four straight in increasingly embarrassing fashion. Again the team is falling apart down the stretch, the team continues to struggle in second halves, and the play calling is poor at best, the system just isn’t working. Many of the losses have been close, but if not for choke jobs from Notre Dame and Indiana, Michigan would be at last years win total of 3. This Saturday Ohio State comes to Michigan, having already been crowned Big Ten Champs, with the opportunity to keep the Wolverines out a Bowl for a second straight year. This game is huge for both teams, Ohio State can claim a much coveted out right Big Ten Title, and keep momentum on their way to their first Rose Bowl in over a decade, while Michigan can save the season with a victory, and grant much needed credibility to Rodrigeuz as a viable Head Coach. If Ohio State wins, the Wolverines will will finish with back to back losing seasons, after a run of forty straight winning campaigns, the Wolverines will finnish without a road win, and end the season with only one Big Ten win. Rodrigeuz will keep his job if he losses to Ohio State, but at $2.5 million a season Michigan clearly isn’t getting what they paid for. Next season will be make or break for Rodrigeuz, if he can’t win, he will be fired, and if the NCAA finds violations, the University can fire him with cause. If all these negative trends continue, and all signs indicate that they will, Rodrigeuz go down in history as the worst head coach in Michigan history.

Broken Legs

In the 1920’s the American economy was booming, the Dow Jones Industrial Average expadned from 63.90 at it’s low in 1921 to 381.17 in 1929. Prognosticators divined that American stocks would continue to rise in value for the foreseeable future, and Herbert Hoover won a landslide election in 1928, promising an age of permanent prosperity. The huge explosion of the stock market was in large part due to massive amounts of speculative investing. Men like Jesse Livermore and Charles Durrant used their huge amounts of capital to drastically move a particular stock’s value up, and then selling at a huge profit. In the 1920’s insider trading and other forms of market manipulation were not illegal, in fact there was hardly any regulation of the stock market. Investors, journalists and corporate executives often colluded, sometimes clearing millions in a matter of days. This speculation and success led to a great number of smaller investors to put their money into the stock market, which had previously been considered a risky place to put your savings, but the consistent growth and promise of huge dividends was too alluring. People were being told that you could make money without having to do anything. Small investors often did not have a great deal of money to invest, but were aided by banks with what is known as margin buying, which is essentially loaning money to be used to invest in stocks. Roger Babson was one of the few who spoke out on the risk that this boom posed, and eventually in March of 1929 the Federal Reserve realized that all this speculation was hazardous. The Federal Reserve realized that the market had become reliant on this borrowed capital to keep the machine going, and any reduction of this margin buying would create a crash, they elected to do nothing. Even though a market crash was inevitable, the market boomed to new heights, and more borrowed money flowed into the market. Durrant said as long as people had confidence in the market it would be able to sustain and grow continuously. However, the market could not grow continuously, in September of 1929 confidence failed, and by 1932 the Dow Jones was at 41.22, about an eighth of its value at it’s peak in 1929. In the 1920’s investing in stocks was essentially considered a form of gambling, and in the end thats exactly what it was for most people. The banks had essentially put themselves in a position where they were lending money on a proposition that was no better than issuing loans to bet on horses. Now there are “banks” which hand out loans to gamblers, they aren’t FDIC protected, and they aren’t looking to ruin your credit if you can’t pay them back, they are going to break your legs. The big difference between what the legal banks were doing, and what illegal loansharking operations do is simply that the loan-sharks are well aware of the risks that they take when they loan out money for wagering, and the legal banks were somehow ignorant of the fact that what they were doing would end up sinking them. After the the 1929 Crash the Government stepped in, and issued a great number of new laws and regulatory oversight on the market. Over the next fifty years the market grew and shrank many times over, but managed to avoid a drastic collapse or a great depression. However, that would not keep people from wanting to tamper with the system. Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 after a decade of economic stagnation, he appointed Alan Greenspan as head of the Federal Reserve, and began a systematic policy of limiting government regulation and interference with financial markets. This led to almost two decades of economic growth, and Greenspan was kept on at the Federal Reserve for the entirety of the boom. In the 1990’s the Dow Jones Industrial Average grew from 2365.10 to over 10,000, and Greenspan was given all the credit. One of the factors that led to this boom was over-the-counter derivatives. Derivatives are unregulated, they exist in a proverbial “black box” in which only the parties involved know the contents of the transaction, the Government has no power to interfere which is exactly how Greenspan wanted it. Brooksley Born of the CFTC tried to exert some sort of regulation on derivatives, but the very powerful financial lobby pushed back and prevented any such regulation, just as they had done in the 1920’s. There was simply to much money being made, and the suckers who were being taken advantage of could not speak loud enough to be heard over the voices of financial titans that were pushing the market closer and closer to 15,000. This unregulated market drew an incredible amount of investment, not only from corporations, but also private investors. In 1998 companies like Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) were making returns of 40% using derivatives, investors were tumbling over each other to get on board, but they were the first to fail. LTCM had borrowed incredible amount of money from most of the major banks in order to place their bets, but no one knew how severely leveraged LTCM was because all of their transactions took place in the “black box”. The banks themselves ended up bailing out LTCM, and congress began looking at regulation on derivatives to prevent such a huge collapse to happen again, but again Greenspan and the financial lobby pushed back and prevented any legislation. Furthermore, they took the extra step of preventing the CFTC from having any ability to regulate the derivatives market. Greenspan and his disciples believed that regulation would collapse the derivatives market, and destroy the economy. From 1998 to 2007 the derivates market ran out of control, expanding to $595 trillion, almost 15 times the total economic output of the the whole world. Greenspan, Larry Summers and Robert Rubin were championing an age of continuous growth. Again this monstrous bubble was largely based upon borrowed money, and again all the major financial institutions were so severely leveraged by the participation in the derivatives market that a collapse was inevitable. This was only part of what created the 2008 Crash, but without the complex web of debt banks were carrying due to derivatives they would have been able to sustain many of the other factors that destabilized the economy. Investors were once agin convinced that they had found a sure thing, and thought that it was entirely reasonable to wager billions of dollars. In the end the horses did not deliver the way they expected, Durrant’s market confidence was shaken, the result was a run on the banks, and they were far to leveraged to be able to deliver. The Government initially thought that the private sector could mitigate the problem like they did with LTCM, but that failed, and the Government was forced to intervene. The stock market is not a sure thing, but if it’s done responsibly it can be a sound investment despite the risk, but people can’t be trusted to always do the right thing if no one is watching. Regulation can and will stifle the market’s ability to boom, but it will also stifle the bust part of that cycle, which as history has shown, is inevitable. The market can not be trusted to it’s own devices, the loan-sharks operate without any regulation, and who would want to invest with them. As of today there has been no legislation to regulate the derivates market, and even worse, there have been no broken legs on wall street despite all the money they’ve defaulted on.