Covid-19 and the victory of quantitative easing

Crises often lead to new paradigms. The politicians of the day try to repair the damage, learn lessons and prevent recurrence. Frequently, they start by strengthening international institutions, or creating new ones. That has not happened over Covid. The international body which should have been most closely involved, the World Health Organisation, has been feeble. When he laid into the WHO, Donald Trump was criticised. For once, that was unfair. Even Mr Trump is not always wrong. That said, he is the most prominent example of the political-health epidemic which currently afflicts the West: weak leadership. None of the major Western countries has an effective head of government. This is depressing, and dangerous.

But in the UK, one thing has gone right. Over the past dozen years, the world economy has been hit by two powerful torpedoes: both of them the worst shocks since the Great Crash and the Great Depression.