A good analogy is stretching a rubber band. You can stretch and stretch and even feel the tension increase in the muscles in your hands and arms as the gap from one end of the band to the other widens. But at some point you reach the limits of elasticity of the band and it snaps. The same thing happens with human systems.

At some point, the world is going to have to bite the bullet and accept a huge downsizing in its way of life to bring the assets-to-debt ratio back in touch with reality.

The world is awash in more debt than there is money enough in the world to liquidate it.

From the 1990s onward, the financial sector created a vast array of instruments designed to separate investors from their money, financial derivatives of an ever-increasing level of complexity. At some point, this complexity reached a point where even the creators of the derivatives themselves didn't understand them.

The global financial system consists of firms in the financial services sector - banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and the like - and various governmental agencies who are charged with regulating these firms.

The process of globalization has now interconnected almost everything ranging from financial markets to transport networks to communication systems in a huge system that no one really understands.

Trying to solve the problem by creating more debt is analogous to trying to stop being an alcoholic by going on a bender down at the corner bar.