The Shrill One's absence from the fray was "partly medical."

I will therefore suspend Day #__ Of The "Why Won't Krugman Post on Bill Black" Watch -- temporarily.

However, there's certainly a prima facie case to be made that accounting control fraud is at the heart of our current financial crisis. It's a huge story! Whether the case can be refuted, or can't be refuted, it's passing strange that The Shrill One has had nothing to say about it. In fact, if Ireland is the new United States, then accounting control fraud would be part of their crisis too. But what we get, in essence, is that "mistakes" were made. Come on!

UPDATE The following post appears to gingerly approach this issue:

Of course, today’s column was essentially “America in an Irish mirror.” How does the cronyism affect that? In Ireland you had key government officials with close personal — and, in some cases, financial — ties to the people inflating the bubble. And there are complaints that despite the crisis that hasn’t changed.

So, do we have anything like that here? What do you think?

"Anything like that?" [refrains from pounding head on desk out of respect for Krugman's achievements] A child of six -- or an adult with Muckety Muck -- can see the "close personal — and, in some cases, financial — ties".

It's the nature of those ties that are at issue. We may have to revise Twain: "There is no native criminal class except Congress [and the banksters]"