Meltdown in Valhalla

What begins with the borrowing of some capital ends 14 hours later with cataclysmic disaster. It is a drama thousands and thousands in the western hemisphere watch these days — from Seattle to New York, from London to Milan, and from Munich to St Petersburg. Ticket prices are high, although sponsorship money flows in luxuriant quantities hand-in-hand with public subsidies; after all, the show (which originally was intended to be produced only once, the set consumed for ever in the last scene’s flames) is notoriously expensive to produce.