The Explosion of Monetary Claims – On the Crisis of the International Financial System

This paper was written by Raimund Dietz one year before the outbreak of the great financial crisis of 2007: Money and financial assets are not wealth, but claims on wealth. When these claims grow for many years faster than value creation, they lose credibility. A correction of asset values becomes inevitable. The financial industry responds to this imbalance by further accelerating the pace of the wealth game and by creating hybrid forms. Asset claims (stocks) rise ever higher and will fall all the more deeply. They will drag the economy (flows) down with them. It is high time to reflect on how to reset the game

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