money is made by shorting property-related investments before a slump, as investors such as the hedge fund manager John Paulson famously did before the 2008 crash, the profit increases GDP. But surely if, for example, bus fares kept rising in real terms, we’d demand to know why bus companies were becoming less efficient, and take action against operators who used monopoly power to push up their prices? But when the cost of financial intermediation keeps rising in real terms, we celebrate the emergence of a vibrant and successful banking and insurance sector.
