Well, no, but what does that have to do with banks?

If banks were capable of intelligent reality-based strategic management, they would have been fighting the other corner, surely?

I am perfectly aware that there is a civil war in Libya. But I don't see how the banksters have much of anything to do with that.

In that case you might want to become more perfectly aware of the rest of Africa too.

People lose their homes. [...]

Er - you do realise that the only reason all of your examples have been happening for the last few years is because of the state of the banking industry?

I was looking for examples of what happens when banks aren't in the way. You provided a list of failures that have been created by banking.

This is rather odd, and worrying.

To repeat - I am talking about social transactions which are not financialised, and not primarily for profit or the generation of the abstract feudal debt management system known as "interest."

It might be useful at this point to think about what that might involve.

But... you have more risky enterprises with banks than without.

No, you don't. This is exactly the point of the argument. You have more risk and instability when banks are pretending to manage the economy - because in reality, the banks have very little interest in decreasing risk, and they can make more short-term profit when risk increases.

Banks can deny certain kinds of business models if they happen not to suit them - but the proper definition of "suit" is not "too risky", it is "not obviously profitable enough."

But these rules are only for the little people, not for the banks themselves. If risk explodes - as it always seems to - the stranglehold the banks have on government means they can always steal public cash.

The whole financial industry is predicated on the (accurate) assumption that it is possible to profit hugely from risk.

This is not a good basis on which to expect much useful risk limitation to happen - as reality bears out, repeatedly.