The McKinsey Global Institute recently estimated that world financial assets today are more than three times world GDP – triple the ratio in 1980 (and up from only two-thirds of world GDP after World War II). And then there are the numbers that sound very large and are hard to interpret: $300 trillion in “derivative” securities; $3 trillion managed by 12,000 global “hedge funds”; $1.2 trillion a year in “private equity.”
麦肯锡全球研究院最近测算认为当今全世界的金融资产比全世界GDP高三倍多—三倍于1980年的比率（二战后的全球金融资产总值只比全球GDP高三分之二）。还有一些巨大而令人费解的数字：300万亿美元的“衍生”证券；其中3万亿美元由12000个“对冲基金”管理；每年有1.2万亿美元以“私募股权”的形式存在。