Ponzi schemes and modern finance

THIS global financial crisis is not over, as the volatile start to the New Year showed that 2016 may be a precursor to the 10th anniversary of the 2007 sub-prime crisis, which itself evolved from 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, after which the US Fed cut interest rates and started the rapid financialisation of the US economy.

Two terms came out of the crisis that we see almost everyday, but have not been explained well by modern financial theory. Most economists think of them as aberrations that are at the periphery of normal economic behaviour. In fact, “Ponzi schemes” and “Too-Big-to-Fail” are at the heart of individual and social behaviour which go a long way to explain what is happening today.