James Fallows on the Internet bubble and the Enron/WorldCom business
The Atlantic exchange.

“But everything has changed because of the corporate collapses too. It is remarkable how rapidly a number of public assumptions have shifted. It was not even a year ago that The Industry Standard magazine went under. One year before that, the Standard (which covered the Internet industries, and for which I wrote a column), had sold more ad pages in a single year than any other magazine in history. To people outside the “new economy,” the Standard’s boom and bust was a symbol of the hubris and delusion of the Internet bubble years. Yes, America as a whole might suffer as the failure of dot-com firms drove the NASDAQ down. But last summer, the prevailing reaction from people in the “normal” economy was: hah hah hah! You phonies have been brought back to earth!…”