On the asset (theory) side, we find the action of central banks in producing asset bubbles with prolonged policies of too-cheap money and the epistemic hubris of managing the Great Moderation blowing up in the faces of the same central bankers who declared that they had tamed the cycle, which is not an unreasonable description of the 2000s. The broad sweep of an asset bubble’s inflation and deflation is well described by the basic Austrian model. The notion that debt is not simply redistributionary (my income is your debt) because leverage matters and that the payoff to debt financing is asymmetric, especially on the downside, is also a telling and important contribution. The problems start when we move to the liabilities (policy) side.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 398