Does anyone anywhere believe anything they are told, on any subject, by any government official, financial expert or banker? Beneath all the outright lies, hopeless spin and half truths there is a more fundamental and corrosive problem. WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU!

The global reserves of credulity have been pillaged and squandered. We have been told too many times that this or that economy was fundamentally sound, that problems were contained, or would definitely be over by Christmas, that Spain was not Greece, Italy was not Spain, that Ireland’s banks were fixed, that we were all in it together and that all the banks are superbly well capitalized.

Even the banks don’t believe. Each protests that they are fine and yet none of them trust each other and won’t lend a dime.

We have found ourselves living in an entire economy of lies. Borrowers lied. Lenders lied. Insurers insured the lies but were lying themselves. The regulators who oversaw the lies lied about how sound the lies were and the people who rated the lies were the most AAA of liars themselves.

Lies like debts can be printed up at will. In fact most of what is being printed in banks and newspapers are all lies related to each other. But what none of the liars remembered is that lies can only be redeemed if there is an equally endless supply of credulity. And although we frequently lament the stupidity, cupidity and cowardice of ‘people’ even they have a finite supply of credulity. And it has been exhausted.

Credulity cannot be printed up, borrowed or electronically magic-ed into existence. There is no EU stockpile or emergency supply. Once its gone its gone. And some time ago I think we reached Peak Credulity and it has been in steep decline ever since.

via World Wide Credulity Crunch. | Golem XIV – Thoughts.