On Christmas evening I had a lot of guests, who hung their heavy winter coats on the rack. The rack held … but in the night – as the guests and their coats were away – it wreck!
First moral: it wreck not directly under the “stress scenario” but after that, as the stress peak was away!
Actually, though it wreck, it didn’t fall since only one dowel was pulled out. However, a shelf for hats above was just laid over, not being fixing. It did fall and could have caused damage and injury!
Second moral: Always consider the chain of risks. Even if your main risk (rack) is robustly managed, it may trigger the depending risks (hat shelf)!
My action: I have fixed the shelf with plastic laces.
But how it really could happen that a big dowel was pulled out of the concrete wall? Well, a guy how mounted the shelf drilled somewhat too much and in order to keep the dowel in place he wrapped it with a paper… making it slippery.
Third moral: QuickFixes can be very dangerous!
My action: I put new dowels and new (thicker) screws in both holes and was not lazy to shorten the second screw (the second hole was drilled exactly, so a too long screw would not properly fix the rack to the wall).
How does it relate to the financial markets? Well, look at what’s going on: Monte dei Paschi Rescue Cost Jumps as Deposits Fall (heavy coats are on the rack). And even if they rescue the bank (will take the coats away) it still might fall afterwards and/or trigger the risk chain. Finally, we can only guess how many dowels the Supermario wrapped with a paper, trying to quickly fix the scruffy bank system.