a passing thought... is this fever of bad loans perhaps an inevitable consequence of the whole usury model?  i.e., the outstripping of tangible asset worth by notional money due to compounding interest over time (which makes money multiply far more rapidly than trees, potatoes, eggs, fish, wheat, etc)?  a later consequence is devaluation of the money supply, but an earlier symptom (it seems to me, just watching from the sidelines) is the desperate search of "too much money" for value to represent, i.e. for hot capital to find some real-world value to invest itself in.  when the amount of capital out there exceeds the worth (at current price points) of available real property and assets, then it starts to invest itself in imaginary or wildly overvalued property -- to create notional bubbles of value -- rather than sit quietly in savings accounts at "unacceptably low" (non-usurious?) rates of return.

just slowly chewing on the problem from my very hands-on little world here at the dock... where a significant chunk of the local economy is informal barter and time trade, plus a lively gift/share economy...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...