In finance, as in pathology, we can learn more from failure
than from success. This lecture examines three famous financial
failures, Metallgesellschaft’s oil futures business, LTCM and related
hedge fund failures, and the current travails of ENRON, and
performs a post mortem on each to see what can be learned. Not
surprisingly, the cause of death was similar in each case, or, to put
it more familiarly, history always repeats itself. [JEL Code: G30;
G38]