Since the 2008-2012 financial crisis, a big problem in the European banking sector was that too many banks continued to carry the burden of loans they had made and which had become dud. Borrowers could no longer pay the interest due, even less the capital repayments outstanding on the loans.

Yet, banks continued to post such loans in their books: cancelling them would have implied a corresponding financial loss that would have cut into their profits.

Even so, it was hardly possible to go on carrying these loans – dubbed NPLs, non-performing loans – for ever, as if they were an ongoing business activity, though quite dead.

Today, the problem remains on the agenda.

The fear was that it would explode with the Covid-19 crisis. As of now it appears this has not been happening but some claim it is likely to occur soon.

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IRONIES

The disgusting story discovered in Canada about children of the Inuit and other “Indian” tribes who were transfered to boarding schools run by religious orders, where they died in droves, is a real shocker.

The children were forcibly taken from their families to be given an “education” according to European norms. No account was ever given regarding how this deadly system was being run and it was kept going for long decades.

It is impossible that many people did not know about it. That they did not speak out against it, and even considered what was happening as acceptable, just makes the whole story more shocking – and this apart from the involvement in the whole affair of religious personnel.

True those were other times, with different standards by which to judge what was permissible and what was out of bounds. And it did not happen only in Canada: in Australia as well...

Ironies never cease. The children of the people responsible for those atrocities now proclaim the rights of man.   

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CHANGES

All societies develop through continuous economic and social change. Even societies which are seen as unchanging ... like communities of the Middle Ages for instance... actually were dynamic and were subject to ongoing adaptation. The memory of how this happened was perhaps lost or the changes could not be remembered clearly. So the fable of “frozen” societies became current.

It was always taken as a sure thing though that changes – no matter where they happened and no matter who got them going – would in the end contribute to the greatest good for all, so long as they remained under human control and direction.

The optimism that some continued to show for change was based on this belief, even if most people dislike change and would prefer to let everything stay the way they found it. Up to now, the rate of social and economic change has continued to increase.

The emergence of digital technology further accelerated the pace. The suspicion arises that changes are occurring at a faster rate than we can reasonably absorb. Should we really worry if this were the case?