The Mers Mess

``Conventional economics teaches that banks are financial intermediaries. They connect those with money to save and lend -- their depositors and investors -- with people and businesses seeking to borrow: a vital economic function. As trustees of other people's money, they are expected to assess, carefully and prudently, the risks of lending that money. When borrowers default, lenders usually bear a significant part of the responsibility for failing to see, evaluate and avoid such loans. Borrowers, after all, are expected to over-value their projects, just as lenders are supposed to play the role of skeptical, diligent risk assessors. Collapsed global credit markets in 2008/2009 exposed the private mega-banks' colossal failures to perform that role.''