Three years ago, the economy was close to full employment, people were spending their money carefree, and the financial markets were booming. Three years later, the economy is in a terrible recession, consumers' spending capacity has evaporated, and financial markets are among the worst in 100 years. Yet I ask a simple question: where is all the money? Some argue it evaporated as consumers extracted equity from their homes and spent it. But they spent it, which means it went to someone. What did these people do with it? Some argue that banks lent irresponsibly (which they did) to borrowers who could not repay their loans. But these borrowers spent that money on houses, cars, goods and services. What did the beneficiaries of this spending do with this money? Some claim that Wall Street packaged and repackaged virtually worthless securities and sold them to unsuspecting investors (which they did) for lucrative fees. But Wall Street spent that money on big buildings, planes, big salaries and bonuses. The recipients of the big salaries and bonuses then spent that money on more cars, houses, vacations, etc. The question remains: where is all the money? Three years ago, all the money flowing through the system was enough to keep most people happy. The population has increased slightly over the past three years, but barely enough to absorb that much money. The silver was not burned, shredded or transported to landfills. If all the money that was flowing through the system was more than enough to satisfy most people, and all that money is still flowing through the system, why are things so different now? Where did all the money go? I can only hypothesize that massive sums...... middle of paper......s were designed to determine what would encourage them to stop accumulating money. What would they spend money on? What would they invest in? Who would they lend to and under what conditions? By determining what would encourage existing money to start circulating again, we could potentially tip the scales without the side effect of extraordinary inflation. I'll end with an open call to entities with enough money to play a role in this game. You know who you are because your net worth is measured in the billions. Pick up the phone, get on a plane, get together and talk. Printing money produces incredible amounts of money, and as a result, the money you accumulate will be worth less and less. The economy moves in cycles and one way or another we will get out of this cycle. But it would be nice if we went out without milk costing $10 a gallon..