On Feb 2, 2010, at 8:10 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> Mike Beggs wrote:
>>
> it's just a figure of speech for the effect expectation of a
>> bailout has on attitudes to risk.
>
> Nothing is _ever_ JUST a figure of speech.
I agree. The term reminds me of the passage Marx quotes from the Scottish financier G.M. Bell's The Philosophy of Joint-Stock Banking in K vol 3: "“Banking establishments are moral and religious institutions. How often has the fear of being seen by the watchful and reproving eye of his banker deterred the young tradesman from joining the company of riotous and extravagant friends?... Has he not trembled to be supposed guilty of deceit or the slightest misstatement, lest it should give rise to suspicion, and his accommodation be in consequence restricted or discontinued [by his banker]?... And has not that friendly advice been of more value to him than that of priest?"