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[...] One is convinced that the market will rise; the other that it will fall [...] The first person is so convinced that the markets will rise that he bets $1 million that it will be higher a year from now. Sure that he will be much richer in a year's time, he starts to spend now. The second perso…

[...] If the government boosts spending to bring unemployment below its natural rate, then the increased demand for labour will push wages up. But to restore firms' profits, prices will also rise, and real wages will fall back to their original level. [...]

[...] Someone buying a meal in a restaurant might use a card, as now, but the result would not be a transfer from their bank account to that of the restaurant; instead there would be a sale of shares from the diner's portfolio and the acquisition of different shares, or other assets, to the same va…

[...] each type of asset is given a risk weight, agreed by international regulators, and this is used to calculate the overall amount of equity a bank must issue. Mortgage lending, for example, was thought on the basis of past experience to be relatively safe, and was given a low risk weight. Sover…

[...] The pretence that the illiquid real assets of an economy--the factories, capital equipment, houses and offices--can suddenly be converted into money or liquidity is the essence of the alchemy of the present system. Banks and other financial intermediaries will always try to finance illiquid a…