It says a lot about the financial establishment that the most revelatory coverage of the worst financial crisis in living memory has appeared, not in the pages of 'The Financial Times' or 'The Wall Street Journal', but in those of 'Vanity Fair' and 'Rolling Stone'. In the first example, former bond salesman Michael Lewis displayed the finest characteristics of investigative journalism whilst exploring the more ridiculous examples of modern greed and credit-based insanity in forensic detail. In the second, Matt Taibbi broke new ground in gonzo journalism as he tilted against the previously impregnable windmills of Wall Street, giving us in the process the immortal description of the taxpayer-rescued brokerage firm Goldman Sachs as "a giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money". In the latest iteration of serious economic and cultural analysis arising from a non-mainstream source, we now have 'Life After The State' - a critique of government written by a stand-up comedian.