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嘎嘣脆

The euro crisis
Going, going, gone?
SO MUCH of modern finance is a confidence game. Banks borrow short and lend long. A perfectly solvent bank can therefore go bust if depositors panic and rush to pull money out. This is why modern financial systems have backstops, despite the moral hazard cost; in their absence, the economy is at risk of irrational destruction.
European leaders have been playing their game with Greece like confidence doesn't matter. They have behaved as if an adjustment is necessary, and the only question at issue is which side will bear its costs. But confidence matters. As time has gone on, markets have become less sure of the talk that Greece would never be allowed to leave the euro area. The euro zone's chief leaders have been more concerned about moral hazard than this confidence dynamic. We know what happens in such cases; the lack of confidence destroys the system.
The slow hiss of capital leakage has been a problem for Greece since relatively early on in the crisis. That problem seems to have intensified significantly in the wake of the recent election. From May 6th to May 15th, for instance, Greeks were yanking deposits from their banks at a clip of approximately