Spanish bank shares plunge

Have you seen that Spanish banking is in trouble?  Less than one year ago this country was touted as a model of banking regulation, in part because it did not allow full securitization of bank assets.

One lesson is that securitization is not necessarily the villain it has been made out to be.

Second, Spanish unemployment is already over fifteen percent (and rising) and this was the case even before Spanish banks started reporting their recent troubles.  There is so much talk about how banks amplify risk but don't toss out the classical model altogether.  Banks also share in risk.  If your banks are less risky, often something else is more risky, and vice versa.  Today many countries are learning this lesson.

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