In Rivers State, at the heart of Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta, the efforts of local politicians to arm and hire criminal gangs to rig elections have spiraled out of all control. Bloody fighting in 2004 between rival gangs armed by the administration of then-Governor Peter Odili during the 2003 election cycle claimed dozens of lives, but those responsible were not held to account. The same pattern has now repeated itself in 2007, with inter-gang fighting in the streets of Port Harcourt in July claiming dozens of civilian lives and prompting a full-scale military intervention. Still, none of the individuals most responsible for that violence have been brought to account.

Even if his pessimism doesn’t seem wholly warranted, a sense of foreboding surely is, which is why his warnings have to be taken seriously. Mr. Phillips writes that the inventors and marketers of the new financial instruments didn’t entirely understand them. An executive of Fidelity International says a panicky feeling has set in on Wall Street because no one knows where the risks really are. The finance minister of France observes that investments may have reached such a level of complexity that no one can assess them. And Charles R. Morris, in his own gloomy book, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown,” reports that even Citigroup’s chief financial officer “did not know how to value his holdings.