More essential reading from Detlev Schlichter:
I tell you what is wrong with the global economy: the global bureaucracy. That is what is wrong. Decades of rising taxation, increasing regulation, and persistent redistribution have fundamentally and structurally weakened the major economies of the world. Underneath the glittering razzmatazz of modern technology lies a society that has been sapped of its capitalist juices. For decades we have been eating into our capital stock.
To make matters worse, this persistent structural decline has been masked and indeed furthered by another evil the bureaucracy has bestowed on us: a constantly expanding supply of fiat money, astutely channelled through the banks and wider financial industry. For decades this has helped project an illusion of savings availability while it has simultaneously weakened the all-important propensity to save and to create lasting capital. A constantly expanding money supply, artificially low rates and cheap credit have encouraged borrowing, leverage and debt-accumulation on a gigantic scale, and have fed various asset bubbles, which in turn have further enhanced the illusion of wealth while diverting resources away from where they could have generated real prosperity. At the same time, a new generation has been raised on the belief that wealth comes from consumption, not saving and production, and that you can vote for it.
Detlev's book Paper Money Collapse is now available from Amazon.co.uk.