The art of banking is always to balance the risk of a run with the reward of a profit. The tantalizing factor in the equation is that riskier borrowers pay higher interest rates. Ultimate safety - a strongbox full of currency - would avail the banker nothing. Maximum risk - a portfolio of loans to prospective bankrupts at usurious interest rates - would invite disaster. A good banker safely and profitably treads the middle ground.

[C]apitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all, but a kind of socialism for the rich.

[T]he first bad bank loan was no doubt made around the time of the opening of the first bank.

The Fed can change how things look, not how things are

Every debt is ultimately paid, if not by the debtor, then eventually by the creditor.

To me the gold price takes the form of a very uncomplicated formula, and all you have to do is divide one by 'n.' And 'n', I'm glad you ask, 'n' is the world's trust in the institution of paper money and in the capacity of people like Ben Bernanke to manage it. So the smaller 'n', the bigger the price. One divided by a receding number is the definition of a bull market.

In general, markets know more than the people who write about them.