Mentioning even the possibility, for example, that the US could default on its debt is met with so much scorn and contempt it would be safer to stand on the street corner warning about an alien invasion.

The same goes for the imposition of capital controls. Or a collapse in the banking system. Or a currency crisis.

No one, from the average guy on the street to a Nobel Prize-winning economist, wants to acknowledge that these possibilities exist.

And yet the most casual glance at the headlines proves that these events not only can happen, they do happen.

The Greek government is broke. This didn't happen overnight. It's not like Greece has always been a picture of financial health and just recently fell on tough times.