In the discussion about the financial crisis since 2007, one important factor has been overlooked, namely the distribution of income and wealth. It is obvious that the social consequences of the financial crisis have been made so much more painful by the growing inequalities of income and wealth in the US and the UK that preceded the crisis. But there are also connections between such inequalities and financial instability. These have been highlighted by many critics of finance. For example, John Hobson, most famous for his 1902 classic Imperialism: A Study, argued that inequalities of wealth and income gave rise to over-saving, and hence economic stagnation. More recently, the late John Kenneth Galbraith noted the connection between tax cuts for the rich and asset inflation. Nevertheless few critical observers1 have been able to go beyond the obvious and odious facts of increasing hardship alongside the conspicuous consumption and display of housing assets by the beneficiaries of financial inflation. Asset inflation and income and economic inequalities are intimately linked. Asset inflation means rising values of financial assets and housing. Such inflation allows owners of such assets to write off debts against capital gains, buying an asset with borrowed money, and then repaying that borrowing together with interest and obtaining a profit when the asset is sold. Hence the proliferation of borrowing by households and consumption ultimately financed by debt.