St. Augustine of Hippo was very frank about his struggles to be chaste and wrote about it in his book, "Confessions". This is where one finds his famous prayer, "Lord, give me chastity, but not yet!" The prayer captures the fact that many of us recognize the need to be virtuous but aren't quite ready to give up our vices and actually BE virtuous, well, not yet anyway. It's kind of like Woody Allen's quip about masturbation (which was reputed to make you go blind). He asked "Well, can I just do it until I need glasses?" I found this bit online: "St. Augustine, who suffered tremendously with trying to be chaste, understood all too well the struggles one goes through in life as we try to embrace fully this holy virtue. His heartfelt prayer, quoted above, is probably so well known because so many people can relate to it. Augustine knew the difficulties one can encounter, and he realized that truly the one we need to fear and guard against is our own self-deception. Not being honest with oneself is the biggest pitfall for all of us." (https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.augustinianmonks.com%2Fimages%2F1-6_October_2006_Chastity_Curiosity.doc) So... we all recognize the need for financial firms to take fewer risks so as not to bet the farm at the roulette wheel. On the other hand, risk reduction results in deleveraging which means that neither individuals nor businesses can get the credit they need and the economy cannot prosper without credit-based spending. So... we want banks to be virtuous and reduce risk but not quite yet because we want them to take on more risk so that the economy can grow. Using another saying, "we want to have our cake and eat it, too".

St. Augustine of Hippo was very frank about his struggles to be chaste and wrote about it in his book, "Confessions". This is where one finds his famous prayer, "Lord, give me chastity, but not yet!" The prayer captures the fact that many of us recognize the need to be virtuous but aren't quite ready to give up our vices and actually BE virtuous, well, not yet anyway. It's kind of like Woody Allen's quip about masturbation (which was reputed to make you go blind). He asked "Well, can I just do it until I need glasses?" I found this bit online: "St. Augustine, who suffered tremendously with trying to be chaste, understood all too well the struggles one goes through in life as we try to embrace fully this holy virtue. His heartfelt prayer, quoted above, is probably so well known because so many people can relate to it. Augustine knew the difficulties one can encounter, and he realized that truly the one we need to fear and guard against is our own self-deception. Not being honest with oneself is the biggest pitfall for all of us." (https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.augustinianmonks.com%2Fimages%2F1-6_October_2006_Chastity_Curiosity.doc) So... we all recognize the need for financial firms to take fewer risks so as not to bet the farm at the roulette wheel. On the other hand, risk reduction results in deleveraging which means that neither individuals nor businesses can get the credit they need and the economy cannot prosper without credit-based spending. So... we want banks to be virtuous and reduce risk but not quite yet because we want them to take on more risk so that the economy can grow. Using another saying, "we want to have our cake and eat it, too".