Common sense is not much use in a financial panic.

To be blunt, credit is successfully reestablished when financial elites say, "When." Credit is close to a synonym for the mood of the ruling class. To say an economy is based on credit is to say it is based on animal mysteries. Glamour, prestige, élan, sprezzatura, cutting a figure ... that is what the economy is made of. It is a rather terrifying thought.

See also:

Where are all the acorns?

Mysteries require judgments and the assessment of uncertainty, and the hard part is not that we have too little information but that we have too much.

The Unwisdom of Crowds