Companies prefer to put money in the pockets of shareholders or to hoard cash rather than to raise wages or invest.

Shareholder value theory - the destructive idea that companies should be run solely for the benefit of shareholders - has led to financialized businesses that do not invest in the areas that will lead to future growth or the invention of useful new products.

Too many politicians seem to reach for 'infrastructure' as the default answer to investment, as if roads and bridges were the answer to everything. Even the IMF and the World Bank seem to mainly offer infrastructure spending as an alternative to austerity, although they are right to focus on the need for investment.

It would be a mistake to overstate the similarities between the Brexit vote and Trump's win - but there are common themes, not least in the rallying cries that the winning campaigns used. They focused on a supposed economic threat posed by outsiders, as immigrants or as trade partners. This fuelling of anxieties underpinned a narrative centered on the need to "regain control," whether of borders or of economic forces.

Brexit and Trump's election are forcing countries to come up with new radical ideas.

Brexit and Trump have brought the problems of capitalism into sharp relief, but both are only making things worse. Take the investment challenge - businesses invest where there they see technological or market opportunity.

Companies prefer to put money in the pockets of shareholders or to hoard cash rather than to raise wages or invest.