Europe Is Beyond Rescue

David Warren:

And once again, let me emphasize: no banks, no economy. No economy, no jobs; and incidentally, no tax revenue. The fatuous “Occupy Wall Street” movement is premised on the notion that this isn’t true, that all bank l end ing should be taken for free money, if the borrowers aren’t in a mood to repay. And while they represent the lunatic fringe, a substantial part of every western electorate nods approvingly towards them, without bothering to think through what they are approving.

It was upon such electorates the Nanny States were built; and in turn, within such Nanny States that incredibly irresponsible public attitudes were cultivated. The very impulse to blame everything that has gone wrong on the greed of “bankers” and “capitalists” betrays a world view that is essentially insane, and now shifting, under pressure, towards malice.

Which is hardly to say bankers and capitalists are without blame. They played along with fanciful regulatory regimes, from shortterm self-interest. They knowingly accepted a dream world in which paper is backed by paper in infinite recession, and applied all their wits to devising the clever instruments by which they themselves were fooled.

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