21 April 2009

The Financial System as the "Titanic" ~ The power of analogy

This provides us a very powerful analogy to the fatal damage inflicted on our financial system by an apparently "glancing blow" with risky subprime mortgages and high-flying derivatives. Just as the Titanic was mortally wounded not by great tears in its hull but by the buckling of steel hull plates, so the U.S. (and thus global) financial system is sinking from similarly "glancing" blows.

The actual damage could have been contained--do you sense another analogy about to surface?-- had the fifth watertight bulwark--shall we call it "the bulwark against systemic failure"?-- extended a few decks higher. But inexplicably, this watertight barrier did not extend as high as the other watertight bulkheads.

Thus even though the water gushing through a fat three foot gash in the forward engine room was held back by the ship's great pumps, as the bow sank lower then water seeped over the fifth watertight bulkhead and gushed into the boiler room.

And so against all "rational odds," the ship's apparently minor structural design flaw led to its inevitable loss as the mighty pumps lost their battle against the rising water.

To all the "experts," the risk of collision with an iceberg were considered low, while the risk of catastrophic damage were considered essentially zero. Hmm, does that remind you of our financial system circa April 2008, just as the great U.S. economy's hull was buckling?

Charles Hugh Smith

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