The dot-com crash has been widely written up, and everybody agrees that we were all foolish to have invested in companies with no track record and no operations. But the euphoria of 1999-2000 may yet leave us with bigger casualties than mere dot-coms.

European commentators have revealed a certain degree of smugness in the last few months. Yes, the United States will have a recession, they say (they are, unsurprisingly, more willing to admit this than U.S. commentators) but it won’t affect us here in Europe.

On Friday evening, the NASDAQ share index was down 59.3 percent from its peak, set on March 12, 2000. But in spite of all the economic gloom, the Dow Jones index over the same period was up 7.2 percent.

The venture capital industry hit town Friday at a lunch meeting held by the ESI-Sloan Congressional Forum with a report on industry progress and an outline for those congressional staffers present of what regulation the industry would like (not much).