Scam alert

AUSTIN, Texas -- Those of the populist persuasion are struggling against what is perhaps the most irresistible of all temptations -- the urge to say, "I told you so."

It is raining evidence these days. The newspaper business sections are turning into the Daily Fraud Update. Deloitte & Touche is now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for its role in the unpleasant doings at Adelphia, energy CEOs keep biting the dust -- first at CMS, then at Dynegy -- the Arthur Andersen trial in Houston gets more depressing by the day, and corporate evildoers are suddenly ubiquitous.

OK, I promise that I'm only going to do this once, but ... we did tell you so. Three years ago, I wrote a column explaining why I thought the high-tech market made Las Vegas casinos look good. One reader was so amused by this ludicrous display of ignorance he sent me an enormous flower arrangement -- the thing had to have cost a couple hundred bucks -- saying I'd given him the best laugh he'd had in years. I bring this up because I think it's important to remember the degree of triumphalism that raged among free-market fundamentalists during the short-lived "New Economy." So if we ever smell it again, we'll know to hunker down.