A businessman who owes more than he owns should be honest about it, she says. “… But what do you want [the businessman] to do?” asks Tjælde. “ To lay all his cards on the table, and so ruin both himself and the others? … In that case we should see a thousand failures every year, and fortunes lost one after the other everywhere! No, you have a level head, Valborg, but your ideas are narrow.” And this play by Bjørnson was written in 1875. Three imbalances in the world economy The financial crisis triggered the largest decline in output in advanced economies since the Second World War. The financial crisis erupted after a period of substantial debt accumulation among households and banks, combined with a real estate boom in the US and in some European countries. There were numerous examples of creative accounting as practised by Bjørnson’s businessman, Tjælde. The bubble burst, but extensive government measures helped put banking systems more or less back on their feet. Interest rates are close to zero in advanced economies, and governments have increased purchases of goods and services and reduced taxes. Many emerging market economies are exhibiting vigorous growth. But imbalances are building up, making the recovery fragile. 1  Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Three Dramas. The Editor – The Bankrupt – The King. 2009. This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.
Ravi Menon: Money at a crossroads - public or private digital money? Summary of panel remarks (virtual) by Mr Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the IMF Seminar on Money at a Crossroads, 18 April 2022. * * *  Summary of remarks by Ravi Menon A crypto asset or token is about digitally representing anything we regard as having value, putting encryption around it on a distributed ledger, where the ownership of the asset can be ascertained and verified, and it can be transferred securely. In Singapore and in MAS, we are excited about the potential to build a crypto or tokenised economy. Cryptocurrencies, about which there is so much excitement, is just one sliver of the crypto ecosystem or economy comprising a variety of tokenised assets. Cryptocurrencies are crypto assets which perform a payments function and try to mimic money. Private cryptocurrency is unlikely to perform the functions of money because its value is unstable and it is not backed by the central bank or the government. Stablecoins are pegged to a fiat currency and therefore derives stability, but it is not clear that all stablecoins, which purport to have a backing, are indeed backed adequately. Without such backing, it is hard to imagine how they will fulfil the function of money. Stablecoins will become a more prominent feature as long as their backing is strong. They could potentially challenge the currencies of some smaller emerging market economies.