Farewell Greg Newton

I learned today via Felix Salmon, and FT Alphaville's Paul Murphy of the sudden and very sad passing of Greg Newton, the former Metal Bulletin and MAR-guru, and prescient satirist of Naked Shorts. As Felix highlighted, Greg was not only one of the earliest must-read on-line commentators but he was probably the originator of the genre of on-line Financial Satire, a platform he employed to great effect in the lampooning of contrapreneurs, scamsters, hubris and simple outright financial stupidity - more often than not BEFORE its discovery by authorities, investors and mainstream financial journalists .

Greg was very supportive of Cassandra Does Tokyo from the outset as we shared a joy of satire, irony, expatriation from the lands of our birth, and a similarly skeptical view of markets and human nature. More impressive however, was that he courageously tackled important contentious issues and people head-on, despite threats of libel and legal action, without the bashful anonymous guerrilla sniping I've shamefully adopted. His bullshit detection skills were of the highest order, coupled with an unparalleled no-nonsense wit and punchy literary-style that always brought a smile to my face, typically accompanied by audible laughter, as I am certain it did to all readers, except perhaps those that he skewered.

But most important from where I sit, Greg Newton was a warm, kind, and thoughtful man, evidenced by the time and attention that he devoted to our correspondence and the issues he championed in Naked Shorts without recompense. I know I, too, will sorely miss him, and the world will be worse-off without his critical eyes.