The Risk-Free Rate in Finance: Danone Yoghurt?

In finance classes, we teach that the risk-free rate is that on a short-term government security, the T-Bill in the U.S. A WSJ article explains that this may not be so. The Greek bond crisis has exposed many governments as deadbeat borrowers in contrast to many creditworthy corporate borrowers. No surprise: whom do you trust more, Nancy Pelosi and Dominique Strauss-Kahn or Paul Otellini, the CEO of Intel? In the CDS market, one has to pay €391 annually to insure €10 million of Italian government bonds, but only €141 to insure bonds issued by ENI, the Italian oil and gas company. IBM costs $32, while the U.S. Treasury costs $36 to insure. France costs €186 while Danone costs €73. No wonder the French government stopped Kraft from buying Danone, they could not let the crown jewel go.
These days, if someone slips me a Canadian quarter or a Chuck E Cheese's token, I keep it. It is high time for J.P. Morgan and Apple to start printing new dollars with an Apple logo on them, and get rid of the green fake ones Obama is passing for real ones.