Stock Watch 12.28.11 “Dionysius of Syracuse”
As you know by know the fears of European sovereign debt, especially Greece, is weighing heavily on the markets. What you may not know is that one of the very first recorded sovereign debt crisis’s involved Greece as well. In 400 BC Dionysius of Syracuse, a financier, borrowed more money from his sovereign than he could repay. Dionysius solution was to order all tribes throughout Europe to create a fund to cover bad debt. He could do this because he was a tyrant. Once he forced the money out of the other European sovereigns he counterfeited the coins doubling the money, paying off his debts and then pocketing the rest for himself. Pretty wild story but that’s just how tyrants roll, B.C. bailout style! Not much has changed in the last 2500 years has it.
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