Rethinking Financial Trust

Описание: Trust holds finance together… until the moment it snaps.

In this conversation, Columbia Law School professor Kathryn Judge explains how trust quietly sustains the financial system, and why it only becomes visible when things start to break. Depositors rarely understand their bank’s proper health, yet they act anyway, relying on signals, habits, and confidence. When that confidence falters, trust does not fade gradually. It breaks fast, as we saw in the dramatic bank runs of 2023.

Kathryn discusses how technology can accelerate panic, while real-world relationships—especially in community banking—can still help slow it down. She also explores how post-2008 reforms built resilience but created expectations of government rescue. Guaranteed support brings comfort, yet it also breeds fragility when markets assume help will always be available.

We discuss the Federal Reserve’s delicate independence, why transparency is adequate only when paired with genuine capacity to act, and how robust balance sheets and human connections remain powerful anchors of stability.
Kathryn also examines the “middleman economy,” where long supply chains and platforms deliver efficiency but weaken direct connection, making trust harder to build and easier to lose.

Finally, we turn to Europe and the debate over Eurobonds. Shared debt could deepen trust across the EU and strengthen the system, yet it would also raise political vulnerability and scrutiny. Mutual commitment is essential for such a step to succeed.

Key message: Finance runs on trust. Maintaining it is far easier than rebuilding it once it breaks.

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