There is an interesting review of Mike Mayo’s Exile on Wall Street: One Analyst’s Fight to Save the Big Banks from Themselves (New York: Wiley, 2012) in the current issue of The Economist (“In Need of Therapy,” January 14, 2012). A maverick par excellence, he offers an insight into the workings of the biggest American banks and other financial institutions. Their record is appalling. As the reviewer asks, why are they not better at the job? Mayo offers the “usual” answers: “corruption, lousy disclosure, ridiculous compensation packages for incompetent managers who are overseen by incompetent regulators, conflicts of interests that are little short of rife.” Perplexed, I went through the list over and over again. It was as though I was going through a litany of my own complaints against Croatian business and government officials. Come to think of it, capitalism is a global phenomenon, indeed. When it comes to its crooked ways, America leads Croatia by an ever-slighter margin. To the credit of the Croatian vermin, they are catching up at an enviable rate.