I called gold the ultimate bubble, which means it may go higher. But it’s certainly not safe and it’s not going to last forever.

The securitisation of mortgages added a new dimension of systemic risk. Financial engineers claimed they were reducing risks through geographic diversification: in fact they were increasing them by creating an agency problem. The agents were more interested in maximising fee income than in protecting the interests of bondholders. That is the verity that was ignored by regulators and market participants alike.

In 2012, the far-right Golden Dawn won 21 seats in Greece's parliamentary election, the right-wing Jobbik gained ground in my native Hungary, and the National Front's Marine Le Pen received strong backing in France's presidential election. Growing support for similar forces across Europe points to an inescapable conclusion: the continent's prolonged financial crisis is creating a crisis of values that is now threatening the European Union itself.

I put forward a pretty general theory that financial markets are intrinsically unstable. That we really have a false picture when we think about markets tending towards equilibrium.

I am against market fundamentalism. I think this propaganda that government involvement is always bad has been very successful - but also very harmful to our society.

Unfortunately, the more complex the system, the greater the room for error.

The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.