I would have added that the ‘shadow banking’ sector of asset backed securities and

speculative derivatives, SIVs and ‘conduits’ (See Paul Mason, Meltdown 2009)is what drove the latter phase of the debt explosion; by putting risk

off balance sheet, more credit could be issued. And all this world of hedge funds, offshore centres and ‘OTC’ (unregulated and unmonitored)

dealings grew up unnoticed and even less understood by politicians, central banks, regulators, academics and commentators.

We are bailing

out the shadow banking sector and all its toxic junk when it should be dismantled and ultimately removed altogether.

Ann repeats truths

that are neither new nor particularly radical but have been forgotten. It was Aristotle (The Politics) who said that making money out of money

(usury) was unnatural, 2,500 years ago.