So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehn, Goodbye...

In light of recent economic events, we here at the Edge must regretfully bid goodbye to two of our longtime links, based on irrelevancy.

Andrew Tobias is a longtime author and has had several very helpful financial ideas which has made Chaos slightly more wealthy in the past. The combination of the US presidential election (Tobias is a hardcore Democrat), and the black swan of 2008, the economic debacle, have reduced this poor man to partisan sniping, cheerleading for the current administration, and starry-eyed techno-fantasies a la Ray Kurzweil. Really, there is now very little benefit to reading such a person, unless you like studying it for sociological purposes. Today's column is a perfect example; after months of boundless optimism, he finally capitulates. Adios, Andy...

Scott Burns has had quite a few interesting columns in his many years of writing, in addition to the very useful book or two concerning the profligate growth of Social Security and Medicare. Alas, this person was also apparently blindsided by the current economic crisis, and has little to offer anymore beyond platitudes. "It's only money," true, but not terribly useful, and that pretty well describes his latest few columns, along with an infuriating tendency to equivocate on whether deflation is coming (hint to Scott: it's already here).

Chaos cannot in good conscience recommend these two any longer; they simply have been eclipsed by current events.