It is an axiom nowadays that no bank fails for lack of capital; unprofitable lending is always the underlying cause.

Progress is cumulative in science and engineering, but cyclical in finance.

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

Hope sustains life, but misplaced hope prolongs recessions.

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.

It's about bums on seats. If nobody wants to listen to what you are doing, it kind of defeats the purpose really, doesn't it?

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