Friday, December 30, 2011

30/12/2011: Taleb's quote

AN excellent quote from Nassim Taleb via @econbrothers :

"If we attempt to systematically extinguish all forest fires, we will eventually experience a big one".

Which, of course, goes to describe concisely and precisely the fallacy of rescuing all banks that Europe has pursued as a principled policy. The old Schumpeterian creative destruction is a required condition for functioning of the private economy, with the latter being the required condition for functioning of the public economy as well. Bankruptcy - as a tool for clearing the hazardously dead forest of private enterprises - must apply to the banks too.

By underwriting the entire private banking system, the EU has created the Mother of All Hazards - a dry forest with numerous pockets of quasi-extinguished fires burning. Now, all we need is wind...

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