Financial repression

Financial repression, a term coined in 1973 by Stanford economists Edward S. Shaw and Ronald I. McKinnon, is used to describe several measures that governments employ to channel funds to themselves and which in a deregulated market, would go elsewhere. In other words it is a hidden non-transparent tax. 

How much financial repression is present by the fact that the banks need to hold immensely much less capital when lending to its “infallible” government than when lending to the “risky” citizens? We have no idea… as we are flying blind with instruments that long ago ceased to function.