"Banks have also diversified their profit generation from interest-bearing business towards arrangement fees and dealing profits, so they are now dependent on perpetually rising markets. They have also managed to depress the general level of commodity prices by flooding markets with synthetic commodities in the form of futures and options, absorbing speculative buying which otherwise would have led to higher prices. Instead, lower commodity and raw material prices have suppressed price inflation below what it would otherwise have been in these easy-money conditions, maintaining the illusion of currency stability. Print money and credit without any discernible loss of purchasing power, and the merry-go-round can continue indefinitely.