Europe’s Banks – Insolvent Zombies
The Walking Dead
Now that Europe’s fractionally reserved banking system has been regulated into complete inertia, it is a good time to assess the current bottom line, so to speak. We should mention here that there are essentially two ways of dealing with the banking system. One is to introduce an unhampered free market banking system based on strong property rights and nothing else. Such a system would work best if it were based on sound money, i.e., a market-chosen medium of exchange. The regulations governing such a system would fit on a napkin.
Image credit: Warner Bros, processing fmh
The Euro-Stoxx bank index, weekly, over the past 10 years. Recently the index has been unable to overcome resistance in the 160-162 area. The bust and the reaction of the authorities to the bust has made zombies out of Europe’s big banks – click to enlarge.
The other way is to construct what we have now: a banking cartel administered and backstopped by a central bank, based on fiat money the supply of which can be expanded at will and involving continual violations of property rights. Fractional reserve banking represents a violation of property rights, because it is based on the assumption that two or more persons can have a legally valid claim on the same originally deposited sum of money (for an extensive backgrounder on this, see our series on FR banking – part 1, part 2 and part 3). This legal fiction is very convenient for the banks and the State, but it sooner or later renders the banking system inherently insolvent (a de facto, but not a de iure insolvency).
Given this system’s inherent insolvency, the regulations governing it obviously won’t fit on a napkin. Instead they fill several volumes the size of telephone directories and keep growing like weeds.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
