>The Great Depression and the GFC, the two most severe economic downturns in modern history,
>were a result of too much debt in the system.
No they were not.

The Great Depression was the result of the Federal Reserve trying to reimplement the Real Bills Doctrine.

The GFC was the result of deregulation and the banks' failure to recognise the risk of credit default swap sellers going bust (until it happened).

You are having these problems as an investment advisor because, like any authoritarian parent, you are anally retentive and unable to think outside the box. And artificially self constrained in attacking our own government's prohibition on, for peaceful purpose, nuclear energy!

Because like so many ill-informed misinformed anti-nuclear advocates, you've clearly swallowed the mountains of fear-mongering misinformation, that has effectively chained our economy and export incomes to oil, coal and gas.

And like you cannot think far enough into the future. Just as far as the graphs and charts will allow! And because it's the same old, same old! You get the same old, same old outcomes!

If only you and your self constrained ilk could get yourselves and your constrained thinking out of the way and just allow a few NEW IDEAS to percolate through we might, all of us face a far more prosperous future!

These new for you, ideas are, cooperative capitalism, social credit as a finance tool and MSR thorium/nuclear energy and us earning a massive annual Billion dollars, income as the world's repository, i.e., a nuclear waste repository, our mining our own rare-earth, lithium, cobalt and graphene!

I mean, seriously, is our best possible investment vehicles, foreign and or in the fossil fuel sector! And the analogy between responsible parenting and responsible ethical investing is in the above, starkly outlined and indicated for all to see!
Alan B.

Correction: The Great Depression and the GFC were a result of too much of our finite wealth concentrating in too few hands!

As far as it goes, the Great depression was a manageable recession turned into the Great Depression by an isolationist President and some of the most asinine contractionary policies by his, Hoover's administration'

The GFC was caused by the creation of trillions worth of worthless derivatives (64 trillion) and a massive real estate bubble that burst! And by those placed in charge, too anally retentive to buck the system that effectively constrained their more intelligent ideas?
Alan B.

Aidan:- The left wing de-regulation you complain about was aimed at increasing debt levels & encouraging people to gamble with the borrowed money.

Alan B:- It doesn't matter whether you invest your capital in coal fired electricity or nuclear powered electricity. If it is 100% Australian owned? The Australian economy & Australian investors will be better off.

Correction Alan B:- America's Great Depression was caused by left wing Keynesianism & higher debts.

Australia NEVER had a Great Depression because of economic & cultural protectionism.

The main interest for me in this very loooooong piece was the commendable way the author and his wife brought up their children. The rot about 'Mummy being my best friend' these days is reflected in the chaotic behaviour of young adults. Parents trying to be 'friends' to their kids have a lot to answer for.