If generalised hysteria is an essential component of bank runs, then de-pegging - or the threat of de-pegging - does not necessarily cause bank runs.

If you want to use that definition of "bank run" (which we can do, sure), then my response to Louis' scaremongering is not to say "bank run already happening" - it is to say "Greece has already proven that it can manage a total collapse of its depository banking system without bank runs and other hysterics."

The operative point is the same: It is perfectly possible, with a minimum of planning, to wipe out savers and creditors wholesale without hysterics on the part of anybody outside the salmon-coloured press, and without a breakdown of the social order.

It is not similarly possible to wipe 20-30 per cent of the employable workforce off the face of the economy without a breakdown of the social order. At least inasmuch as one's definition of "social order" includes some semblance of parliamentary democracy and responsible government.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.