But central banks struggled to avoid a deflationary outcome; the result was a loose monetary policy that encouraged asset bubbles.
Moreover, the levers that will reduce poverty -- policies to create more good jobs, ensure equal pay, encourage asset-building, and help maintain dignity and security when families fall on hard times -- are the same levers that will strengthen and rebuild our middle-class.
Although a pipeline company fits squarely into what Congress seemed to have in mind for M.L.P.'s, the I.R.S. ruling encourages more assets and services that are incidental to energy production to be stripped out and spun off into M.L.P.'s, making the income produced exempt from the corporate tax.
On that note, it's encouraging to see assets in European ETFs, less than $1 billion back in 2000, have now grown to more than $192 billion.
Cheap debt, in the form of mortgages, artificially inflated housing assets, encouraging people to take on more cheap debt, that they could treat like disposable income, created a consumer boom.
There is, to be fair, one way that fortunes could be made in the short run on these assets, which is if the Geithner plan works exactly as it's supposed to, with the initial purchases of toxic assets encouraging other investors to take a risk on buying them, sparking in turn the emergence of a genuinely liquid secondary market where these assets could be bought and sold.
That, at least, is the theory, according to Mr Borio.But while fiscal policy can be very helpful at the trough of the financial cycle, monetary policy is much less likely to be successful:Monetary policy typically operates by encouraging borrowing, boosting asset prices and risk-taking.
In pursuit of this end, government has brought in community rights to build, bid and challenge and is encouraging the transfer of assets from principal authorities downwards, plus the development of DIY neighbourhood plans.
The government has been buying a wider range of assets and encouraging the private sector to invest more money overseas.
Most money management firms, including Schwab, are encouraging customers with modest assets to communicate via the Internet or the telephone.
