The great overseers or our financial affairs are forever intervening and the accumulation

of these interventions introduce mispricings, distortions that ultimately result in yet additional

interventions.

And that's why capitalism isn't.

I'm Bethany McLean.

Did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism? isn't. I'm Bethany McLean.

Did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed's a good idea?

And I'm Luigi Zengalis.

We have socialism for the very rich, rugged individualism for the poor.

And this is Capital Isn't, a podcast about what is working in capitalism.

First of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed?

And most importantly, what isn't?

We ought to do better by the people that get left behind.

I don't think we shouldn't kill the capital system in the process.

So, Bethany, do you know that credit comes originally from a Latin world?

The Latin word, credere, means to trust, which at the end of the day, lending is an art of faith.

Which raises a question, of course, is credit a good thing?

I mean, of course it's the lifeblood of an economy.

Without it, people and businesses wouldn't be able to bet on a future, to

finance growth, to acquire an asset that has to be paid over time. But of course, too much credit

is a really bad thing. At the heart of, I think, every financial collapse, at least everyone I can

think of, is the provision of more credit than borrowers can pay back. Credit, at least in my view,

...