What's happened now is that the ECB sounds increasingly willing to act as the necessary lender, and that in general the softening of austerity rhetoric makes it seem less likely that Italy will be forced into default by sheer shortage of cash.
But the assumption that its failure modes are worse than those of office work, just because office work is the historical default, is sheer intellectual laziness.
And male, in sheer numbers, is the default gender for artists.
Wise and responsible voices have suggested that it is the sheerest folly to threaten default on the nation's debt.
The sheer fright that that prospect of default imparts may or may not be enough to jerk all sides out of their posturing.
But the former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling, however, told Scotland on Sunday that Greece was bust and should be allowed to default, describing the austerity imposed on Greece as "sheer lunacy".
They rely on the default and they don't realize the retention risk, just the sheer volume of what's there.
Left unchecked, demographic pressures will send the combined public debt of the big rich economies towards 200% of GDP by 2030.The sheer scale of their fiscal burdens may tempt governments to lighten their loads by inflation or even outright default.
But not afterwards.Although there are ISDA rules to cover such events, the sheer size of Lehman in the market (its gross derivatives positions will be hundreds of billions of dollars) makes this default a severe test.
Sheer fear, sheer terror.
