A history of extreme money

Spending an hour with Satyajit Das is an excellent cure for the head-in-the-sand optimism that typically emanates from the financial industry.

A former trader and author of several books on derivatives and finance, he is scathing of his former peers and most of the people running the global economy, whose suggested remedies he typically describes as “idiotic”, “incompetent” or “stupid”.

We met up earlier this month in a cafe in Tai Koo Shing, in Hong Kong’s eastern district, to talk about his latest book, Extreme Money, which went on sale in Hong Kong this week and charts what he calls the “financialisation” of...