Bankers trust governments. They trusted the Greek government to meet its next interest payment on May 19. On April 23, the Greeks began playing the Hank Paulson card. The banks saw the possibility of a default. Bank shares started falling. So, bankers got to work. They, too, played the Paulson card. The S&P downgrades added credibility to the scenario. There was a threat of a systemic breakdown.
The bankers' solution is the tried and true strategy of moral hazard, described by Walter Bageot in the late 19th century. The banks are bailed out by politicians and central banks. Losses are transferred to the taxpayers by way of bailouts and currency depreciation. The day of reckoning is postponed.
For the first time in Western history since the late nineteenth century, a few million voters are beginning to catch on. They don't understand fractional reserve banking, but they understand when politicians raise the national debt to bail out people who cannot pay their interest on time.
Voters in Germany resisted. This accomplished nothing. As they were going to the polls, Merkel was selling them out to the PIIGS and the banks that trusted the PIIGS, especially French banks, which own a third of Greek debt.
It is beginning to dawn on a minority of voters that the political game is rigged in favor of big banks. It has taken a century for this to begin to register. This is a threat to Establishments everywhere. This was the #1 secret that the Establishments have attempted to conceal.