The following list comes from Michael Pettis, a very incisive commentator on global economics. It is probably one of the best single pieces you can read on how to identify problem countries in advance. Here is a slightly edited version of Michael Pettis’s five things that matter.3 1. Debt levels matter. The best way to measure them is as total debt

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Economist and noted Islamic Finance scholar Mohammad Siddiqi dryly makes this connection in, A Vision for the Future of Islamic Economics,[92] noting that, “almost all money in circulation is interest bearing debt transferring wealth from fund users to the owners of capital. It is not technically necessary for society’s means of payment to play thi

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Irregular fluctuations, in response to changing consumer tastes, resources, etc. will certainly occur, and sometimes there will be aggregate losses as a result. But the regular, systematic distortion that invariably ends in a cluster of business errors and depression—characteristic phenomena of the “business cycle”—can only flow from intervention o

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