In a recent Project Syndicate column economist John Kay nicely sums up the generic ways in which people are led down fake paths of wealth creation, only to have them blow up later. When the path is illegal, it may be called embezzlement, when it’s legal it’s been called “febezzle” or “functionally equivalent to bezzle.” Kay explains:
“There are numerous routes to bezzle and febezzle. In a Ponzi scheme, early investors are handsomely rewarded at the expense of latecomers until the supply of participants is exhausted. Such practices, illegal as practiced by Bernard Madoff, are functionally equivalent to what happens during an asset-price bubble.
Tailgating, or picking up dimes in front of a steamroller, is another source of febezzle. Investors search for regular small gains punctuated by occasional large losses, an approach exemplified by the carry trade by which investors borrowed euros in Germany and France to lend in Greece and Portugal.
The “martingale” doubles up on losing bets until the trader wins – or the money runs out. The “rogue traders” escorted from their desks by security guards are typically unsuccessful exponents of the martingale. And the opportunity to switch between the trading book and the banking book creates ready opportunities for financial institutions to realize gains and park losses.
The essential story of the period from 2003 through 2007 is that banks announced large profits and paid a substantial share of them to their traders and senior employees. Then they discovered that it had all been a mistake, more or less wiped out their shareholders, and used taxpayer money to trade their way through to new levels of reported profit.
The essential story of the eurozone crisis is that banks in France and Germany reported profits on money they had lent to southern Europe and passed the bad loans to the European Central Bank. In both narratives, traders borrowed money from the future. And then the future came, as it always does, turning the bezzle into a bummer.”
Installation by Philippe Parreno