There are many ways that you can divide the world into two groups. Men and women, for example—with the former being about 50.2% of the population and the latter 49.8%. Or those that like math and those that don’t—where there are no accurate figures, but I’d hazard a guess at a 10% to 90% split.
The (almost) binary grouping that motivated this post is between those who reckon that banks, debt and money are of no real consequence in capitalism, and those who believe that the mere mechanics of banking guarantee that capitalism is doomed. The former includes the vast majority of economists, who delusionally model the macroeconomy as if banks, debt and money don’t exist. The latter includes most of the general public, who know that banks create money when they create a loan, and think that because banks insist on interest on loans, the money supply has to grow indefinitely.
I reckon the split in this binary division is about 0.1% in the “banks don’t matter” camp, and 99.9% in the “debt can’t be paid” group. But there is also a statistically insignificant handful who reckon that both groups are wrong.
I’m one of that handful, and both other groups exasperate the hell out of me, and my sprinkling of like-minded colleagues—hi Stephanie, Scott, Richard [both of you] and a few others. A tweet from one the 99.9% finally pushed me over the edge on Twitter this weekend—see Figure 1—and I promised that I’d devote my next column on Forbes to debunking this myth.
