Putting an end to the reign of financial illusion

“We all know that our world has become very indebted over the past decades and that its ‘financialization’ has reached proportions never observed before, at least in peacetime.
But how serious is this phenomenon?
What are its consequences on the solidity of our financial system, on the functioning of our economy and on the future of our society?
Above all, we must understand how our world has surreptitiously changed its model for the past two decades. It has slipped to a strange paradigm, one in which the bulk of economic activity is now reflected in the rise in the value of financial assets at the expense of growth, wage income and productive investment.
It is time to put an end to the reign of illusion and to reinstate the fundamental economic springs without which there can be no real growth.” J. de L.

“No one alive today combines Jacques de Larosière’s experience with an acuity about global finance. His sharp