It’s so simple and obvious, the system is, and has been since about 2000, or maybe 1998 and LTCM, a system in which the “capitalist” cannot lose because they will be bailout by the government. This is not, of course, capitalism, in any traditional sense nor in any sense by which anyone understands the model to operate, because it is not a system that can, in the long run, increase the capital. Cannibalism would be a better term. It is a system of extracting wealth from those with less capital and accumulating it to those who already have more. When you look at it this way, everything makes sense. Of course interest rates are zero or below, of course growth has slowed, because it’s only nominally capitalism now. Risk/reward, personal initiative, innovation, competition, these have a diminishing place in an economy where the big capitalists never fail. Of course, capitalism was always a disaster prone system, so it needed intelligent regulation, but when regulated properly the results were amazing. This new system, on the other hand, it is still regulated with the broken regulations meant to apply to capitalism. It is “working” in the sense that it is making some people incredibly wealthy, but it can’t lead to a general increase in prosperity because it does not encourage the best ideas or the best and bravest people, instead it rescues and rewards the incompetent.