On the surface, everything still looks remarkably stable in the core industrial economies. The stock markets in Japan, Germany and the U.S. are only a few percentage points off their highs, and we’re constantly assured that inflation no longer exists

The money multiplier effect no longer works. As you (hopefully) know, we live in a fractional reserve banking system: if the bank is required to have $1 in cash reserves for every $10 in loans, it means the bank creates