The greatest puzzle today is that since the global crisis financial markets see so little risk, with asset prices rising everywhere in response to zero interest rates and quantitative easing, while companies that invest in the real economy appear see so much more risk. What can be happening? The puzzle is even more perplexing when we see policy makers lamenting the lack of investment in advanced countries at a time when the world economy shows all of the characteristics of excess capacity: low inflation and falling general price levels in some advanced countries for the first time since the gold standard and despite six years of the easiest global monetary policy stance in history.