When you say "paying the banks," what they really mean is paying the bank bondholders. They are basically the One Percent.

I think we're in the take-the-money-and-run stage of the economy. So the banks may go under, but the bankers, who make the policy, clean up.

We're in a chronic debt-deflation. There's no way we can recover unless you write down the debts. And that's what the IMF basically is implying (and it was explicit regarding Greece), but its not spelling it out, because that's not what can be said in polite company.

That's why Apple, Microsoft and the big information technology companies have kept so much money registered abroad (although in US dollar accounts with a nominal foreign address's owner). They pretend to make their global income in Ireland. They have an office, which could be simply a postal drop box in Ireland, and claim to make all their money there, not in America.

Most of these charges that people pay are economically unnecessary. There's no real cost behind them. There's no real value behind them. So, they're what the classical economist called empty pricing. Prices with no real cost value. What they called rent and fictitious capital. Capital claims on junk mortgage borrowers. The pretense is that all these debts can be paid but it's all fictitious, because everybody knows - at least on Wall Street everybody knows - that many debts can't be paid.

The biggest industrial sector next to real estate is oil, gas and other mineral resources. They don't report any taxable income, because if you depict yourself as earning a profit, you have to pay a tax on it. So, it's all about what accountants choose to declare as profit.

There are so many currency exchange rate problems that people are buying gold as a safe haven. Right now, gold looks like a safe haven if international exchange rates break down.