from the bear's den

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Nov 21 08:34:49 PST 1999


Rob Schaap wrote:


>Always enjoy a good bear story! Was wondering if you could spend a
>sentence on what 'the Souk al Manakh' was and another on what a 'moral
>hazard meltup' would be.

Don't know about the first. The second would be, obviously enough, the opposite of a meldown, a massive upsurge in stock prices, driven by the collective recognition that the stock market is now "too big to fail," and that Greenspan & Co. will do anything to minimize losses. "Moral hazard" is financial jargon for the unsound behavior encouraged by insurance: if you feel covered, you're more likely to be reckless. Works with debt forgiveness and indulgent bankruptcy laws, too: if you can file for bankruptcy with little sanction, then you're more likely to run up the credit cards.

Doug



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