As creators of credit, banks are in a very privileged position. To create a loan, the equivalent of making a sale for other companies, banks just need to type a number into a computer and hit ‘enter'. This is a licence that frequently gets abused if banks throw caution to the wind.
When it does, the consequences can be painful, as has been evident in much of the developed world in the last three years. In years gone by, bankers were personally liable for the loans they extended. It has become patently obvious why this was the case. In Asia, Japan's banking crisis which was precipitated by the collapse of its super-geared property market in the early 90s, recently entered its third decade. As for the rest of the region, the Asian financial crisis was extremely painful for a number of countries, though they all managed to grow themselves out of it very quickly, a lux...
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