Moral Hazard --> Mortal Hazard

The Market Ticker ^ | 05/06/2010 | Karl Denninger

[Mr. Jeeves]

"Kick the can"
"Quantitative easing"
"Bail 'em out"
"The system needs the taxpayer to help it"

The Greeks have rendered their verdict on this sort of thing with molotov cocktails, murder and mayhem.

Let's take a critical view of this: Was it murder and mayhem, or was it justified violence?

Wait a second: All violence is not justified, right?

Well, no. If someone kicks your door in at 3:00 AM intending to rape your wife, and you shoot them, that's certainly violence. But most people would call it justified violence - that is, lawful self-defense.

On the other hand if you're walking peaceably down the street, someone decides they want your wallet, and they proceed to mug you, that's clearly criminal violence - even if the person doing the mugging is dead broke and starving.

This is a bit more complicated. The Greeks have had decades of ever-increasing entitlement. The government has conspired with private parties, most particularly the largest and most-powerful banking interests in the world, with the intent (and execution) of falsely misrepresenting fiscal health. The ECB and rest of the Europeans intentionally went along with what they had to know was radically cooked books.

...

The lesson contained within this sad episode is that we have committed the same sins here in America, as have other nations around the world. Repeatedly we have believed that the solution to too much debt is more debt. The merchants of that debt have become entrenched and privileged within our governments, and have bent the ear of politicians (either through persuasion or outright bribery of various sorts) in furtherance of their schemes.

[Mr. Jeeves]

We are, right here and right now, in America, on the edge of what is happening in Greece. I know you're not being told this on ToutTV, but it is nonetheless true. Look around you; Illinois cannot even buy ammunition from some vendors for their State Police because they haven't paid their suppliers, who are now in turn refusing orders.

Pay attention. The hour is near...

[Travis McGee]

What's new and really ugly, is it's never happened across the entire globe at the same time.

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

~~Ludwig Von Mises

[Travis McGee]

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

Good link. Scroll down one story to “Hazard.”

[Leisler]

Just Greek nationals doing to Greece what Wall Street guys did to us. They get to privatize profits and socialize debts.

Like the Mafia uses a restaurant to order lobsters and booze, the Greek elite used the citizens as collateral, skimmed the loan money, and now use German,Dutch and some Greek citizens to absorb the costs.

There is no way, zero, zip in this world economy that the internal Greek political economy can take more taxes, income taxes.

The EU loans are a prayer. Time buying, never mind a bailout of lenders to this bad, corrupt, incompetent government by those that should of known better.

[DuncanWaring]

Or just go straight to:
http://market-ticker.org/archives/2281-Moral-Hazard-Mortal-Hazard.html

[arthurus]

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom... etc,

Everyone on earth should get this quote in his email.