The+Historical+Moment_pedlt3



I had a little trouble thinking of a description of this historical moment. Something about what is happening in Cyprus, however, seems to be emblematic of a larger trend however. It is, as far as I know, the first time since the 1930's that depositors have been put in a position of losing their deposits. This seems like a particularly dangerous experiment for a world that runs on fractional reserve systems, even if, at least for now, it is an isolated case.

At any rate, what seems to characterize this moment to me is neither original nor new: Financial/economic risk is being redistributed in new ways--more chaotically, arbitrarily, but perhaps more experimentally--with at least certain important kinds of risk reaching farther into everyday lives in the U.S. and the Eurozone than in the past few decades.