You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.
The financial sector connects savers and borrowers - providing "intermediation services". You want to save for retirement and would obviously like your savings to earn a respectable rate of return. I have a business idea but not enough money to make it happen by myself. So you put your money in the bank and the bank makes me a loan. Or I issue securities - stocks and bonds - which you or your pension fund can buy.What happens when you put a lot of money in one place, however, is quite a bit more complex and that's what the author tries to explain. The more I read this stuff, the more I think we're bound to swing back to the simplicity of something like peer-to-peer lending.