It is mistaken in seeing finance as unproductive: it may not be tangible but its economic effects are. Financiers decide which investment projects best balance risk and reward and channel money to them: they offer ways to share intolerable risks, such as the house burning down; they allow the young to buy houses by borrowing from the old; and they make possible the exchange of goods without exchanging physical currency. If finance did not exist we would have to invent it – or find some communistic central planners to do the job instead.

It is telling that the arguments against "finance is too big" are purely of the "finance is necessary" kind. It, of course, ignores that most people that make the argument that finance needs to be cut down to size (including yours truly, a banker) do not call for it to be eliminated, just tamed and made boring. It is also enlightening to see that the bogeyman of communist central planning is brought up right away, suggesting that there are no other arguments remaining.

Japan and Germany are both manufacturing powerhouses, yet they seem just as susceptible to this downturn, partly because they relied on finance-driven consumption abroad to provide demand for their exports.

That the FT uses the point above as an argument for finance (even those that did not dabble are touched) rather than against (consumption was based on unsustainable financial shenanigans rather than real revenues) is beyond me but it takes us back to the heart of the debate about money. Finance has moved away from dealing with money (the oil that helps the wheels of the economy spin efficiently) to dealing with extravagant volumes of debt (the oil that improves the oil), becoming completely autonomous in the process as increasing parts of that debt were not even remotely connected to any underlying economic activity. But debt can be turned into money (liquidity permitting...) and can easily pollute the economy, as we see all too clearly today.

Which brings us to the euro. It's been designed, like the DM before it, because of the earlier experiences in Germany, as a currency that could not easily be spoiled by the ravages of too much debt. Stability, and protection of value have been overriding priorities, which has translated into discipline for the public sector via the Maastricht criteria and for the private sector via a hawkish central bank not keen to hand out too much debt.

In a world of freely tradable currencies, and mobile capital, debt can come from many sources, and dollar follies can spread around the world, as can the narratives that both created and supported the bubble economy (also known as the Anglo Disease). That eurozone companies also joined in the "fun", and that eurozone economies are affected by the collapse of the debt pyramid is not an indictment of being prudent with money, as we are being told repeatedly, it's just a testament to the pervasiveness of the Anglo disease. The superficial attraction of debt-fuelled growth, especially to elites that should have known better and got sucked in (and personally benefited massively, surely not a coincidence) is easy to understand, especially when it benefits from nonstop propaganda through compliant or complicit media, pundits and politicians. When becoming rich and return on capital are the only gods of the day, you join in the fun or at least adapt to prevailing rules.

In that context, it is almost a wonder that the euro has performed as well as it has, and a testament to the political vision of its founders, which created stable institutions specifically able to withstand the pressure of the common wisdom of bubble times. The euro is a political endeavor (something that the neolib Anglos deny with all their force, but acknowledge at the same time by fighting it as hard as they can) and it is based on old-fashioned concepts about the soundness of money (ie keeping finance, defined as the manipulation of debt, on a leash - again, something denied by the neolib Anglos because they can't tolerate finance being defined that way, and fought because they do define it that way).

But reality cannot be denied. The fundamental soundness of the euro may be questioned by the propagandist of the Cult of the Bubble, which keep on inventing new reasons why it will fail (which are all, naturally, based on the innate superiority of the debt-based "flexible" and "free" economies of the Anglo variety) but it is obvious for all to see. Dollars are bought because they are needed to pay for oil, or to protect the export industries of countries that feed on the debt-fuelled consumption bubble, or to redeem asset liquidation by US-based investors. Euros are bought to store value, or to buy goods that have value.

The dollar is increasingly money backed by financiers-manipulated debt. The euro is fundamentally money backed by real economic activity. The distinction will matter. And the finance industry will follow.