The Global Recovery Is Sending Flares. Is Anyone Watching?
The initially robust economic revival is close to exhaustion. Thankfully, at least one senior central banker is paying attention.
Disturbing signs.
Photographer: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images
As policy makers vie to claim the mantle of hawk-in-chief, spare a thought for what we like to think of as the recovery. It’s hard to think of an economy that’s traveling comfortably, let alone doing well. All the attention devoted to inflation slaying is muting some disturbing signs on the growth side of the equation.
Many central bankers say the best way to safeguard the economy is to contain price rises. They are really referring to prospects over the medium-to-long term. Their insistence on ratcheting up interest rates in big steps and lecturing about the bad old days of the 1970s — when borrowing costs were relaxed too soon and high inflation became entrenched — means that faltering growth now is a secondary concern, at best.