The most common incidents -- the slam of a door, a car backfiring, a surprise tap on the shoulder -- can cause a panic reaction.
Then there is the obfuscatory nature of bureaucracies (government, businesses and the media), that hides facts for reasons both good (not wanting to cause a panic) and bad (self-interest).
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But it might not take such dire conditions to cause a panic that would send investors running to the bank to pick up or sell that chunk of gold they think is waiting with their name on it.
This used to happen with radio, when War of the Worlds could cause a national panic.
But the bigger reason was that regulators were terrified that if they imposed losses on bondholders they would cause a wave of panic across the financial system that would hit funding for all banks.
Exhaustion or disorientation under water could cause a weak swimmer to panic.
If a panic were to cause Japanese to flee yen-based holdings, the U.S. dollar might soar in value, creating a dollar bubble that could fuel a temporary speculative stock market boom.
Of course mad panic might cause problems because a bank always lends a proportion of its customers' money and it simply doesn't have enough to pay them all.
In a panic, incomplete paperwork could cause the whole system to collapse amid disputes about who owns which liabilities.
Then they have to panic sell and that could cause a landslide.
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But it was a difficult decision to handle - whether it would help or cause panic.
Moral hazard and excessive intervention could cause a steep sell-off in Treasury and Dollar markets, causing further panic.
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"We are therefore passing a strong message to all those who may want to cause unnecessary fear and panic among members of the public that the long arm of the law will soon catch up with them, " he said.
In The Wall Street Journal opinions section, a group of 16 scientists, including former professors and chiefs of several atmospheric research institutes, have argued boldly that global warming is no cause for panic, claiming that the mean temperature of the Earth has not changed for more than a decade.
In which case, if you take them all over all at once, you cause less damage than if you would if you took over a couple now, and created so much confusion and panic and nervousness.
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