My latest essay.

At this point, it seems likely that Jobs will be remembered as having contributed significantly to human progress. Chu’s historical legacy is more problematic. Assuming that Chu’s efforts at promoting solar power and electric automobiles are no more successful than the Carter-era effort to build a breeder reactor, they will end in dismal failure. Is there a lesson to be learned from this about where society should want its super-achievers to perform?

Another excerpt:

Since the 1930s, we have, through deposit insurance, insulated ordinary savers from the animal spirits of their bankers. This puts the onus on bank regulators to tame the animal spirits. The regulators’ track record, in my view, is dismal. The current approaches, as embodied in Basel III and Dodd-Frank, strike me as more of the same.