"Creative Destruction"

Economist Joseph Schumpeter is credited with coining the phrase, creative destruction, which:

illustrate[s] the same process of industrial mutation–if I may use that biological term–that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in.

The concept that in failure, capitalism puts old resources to work in new ways, was wonderfully illustrated for me in the article, Stress Testing Is What Got Us Here, by James Keller. Not because of its insights into "legions of quantitative analysts at the big banks" attempting to quantify risk, and failing. (Which is worth reading in its own right). But because of this, the closing byline:

Mr. Keller, former head of structured products at UBS, now runs a micro-finance enterprise in Peru.

Putting old capital - in this case intellectual capital - to work in new ways. Indeed. Bravo for My. Keller, and how wonderful for the Peruvians, who may use his knowledge to build their own share of global wealth.