I agree with you that the money is being piled up in banks right now and not getting out into the economy but I don't see how that can go on for long because banks can only make profits by making loans and the bankers are gambling with public money now so even more reason to take risks. However, we need to see a bottom in real estate first.

Rising wages would help to underpin assets prices, particularly houses, but surely this can only happen in the context of massive devaluation of the Western currencies again the Asian currencies.

My thinking was as to whether this is all a necessary part of a "set-up" for the inflation that wipes the slate clean in terms of liabilities, funded and unfunded, and whether they're going to use Peak Oil as a convenient scape goat for what they will do. People are well conditioned to seeing high oil prices as a cause of inflation in the wider economy and the authorities are always very careful to aportion the blame for this elsewhere and claim it is an external factor over which they have no control. Just thinking aloud really...