They say that time is money. What they don’t say is that money
may be running out of time. There may be a natural evolution to
our fractionally reserved credit system that characterizes
modern global finance. Much like the universe, which began with
a big bang nearly 14 billion years ago, but is expanding so
rapidly that scientists predict it will all end in a “big
freeze” trillions of years from now, our current monetary system
seems to require perpetual expansion to maintain its existence.
And too, the advancing entropy in the physical universe may in
fact portend a similar decline of “energy” and “heat” within the
credit markets. If so, then the legitimate response of
creditors, debtors and investors inextricably intertwined within
it, should logically be to ask about the economic and investment
implications of its ongoing transition. But before mimicking
T.S. Eliot on the way our monetary system might evolve, let me
first describe the “big bang” beginning of credit markets, so
that you can more closely re