[Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market by Walter Bagehot]@TWC D-Link bookLombard Street: A Description of the Money Market CHAPTER VI 41/48
But in this case the trade will not have remained stationary; it will have increased--certainly to some extent, probably to a great extent.
The 'loanable capital,' the lending of which caused the rise of prices, was lent to enable it--to augment.
The loanable capital lay idle in the banks till some trade started into prosperity, and then was lent in order to develope that trade; that trade caused other secondary developments; those secondary developments enabled more loanable capital to be lent; and that lending caused a tertiary development of trade; and so on through society. In consequence, a long-continued low rate of interest is almost always followed by a rapid rise in that rate.
Till the available trade is found it lies idle, and can scarcely be lent at all; some of it is not lent.
But the moment the available trade is discovered--the moment that prices have risen--the demand for loanable capital becomes keen.
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