Backers of the Swiss Vollgeld suggest that if money is divorced from debt and if the government owns the banks' debt, then a run is impossible. Unfortunately, the real world is almost never so simple.
This week, when the Swiss National Bank broke the Swiss franc's cap to the euro, it demonstrated that the SNB had conceded central bank power to market power.
That the world is grossly overindebted is perhaps an obvious point. But by how much — and why — are less clear. Today total global debt stands at approximately $150 trillion, or 194% of global gross domestic product. And… READ MORE ›