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I’ve lately been making the following joke: ‘The stupidest person in the cemetery is the one with the largest bank balance at death, and the smartest is the one showing a nice, round zero’. But this is not really a joke. It is in fact a pointed statement about money’s purpose and value. It is valuable only because it allows us to exchange goods and services, as we have chosen it as a simple and intuitive proxy for value. Thus, the value of our money is only exercised when we use it (for purchases, investment, tax payment or charity). When we don’t, and it sits on a bank account where we stare in awe at the many zeroes and grin at our name on the Forbes Richest List (other lists available, not that I recommend any), we get no value from it, bar for an empty, twisted satisfaction at most. Money must be deployed in the economy, creating wealth and improving standard of living for all. Anything else is stupid and indicative of a lack of understanding and, by extension, lack of intelligence...

  Capitalism as described by Adam Smith, its ideological father, is based on the accumulation of capital, which keeps the system operating. The capitalist (in modern terms, the entrepreneur, as for Smith the capitalists were the factory owners) accumulates wealth to reinvest it in additional means of production, growing his capacity and as a result his competitiveness. This in turn increases general wealth, as more competitive production means cheaper consumer goods. Alas, the XXI century is very different to the XVIII. A large proportion of global wealth today is unproductive, tucked away in tax havens and invested in obscure assets, not engaged in tax paying, employment creation or productivity increase. This robs the population of the benefit of accumulation, without benefitting the accumulator, who has nothing to show for it other than an inflated bank balance. Our system needs to find a new way to employ accumulated capital in the productive delivery of society’s objectives Le...