The new norm in finance

One of the best-known American songs of the Great Depression was "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" The narrator asks why people who built railroads and skyscrapers, and fought in wars, suddenly were unemployed and seeking food handouts.

We're not at that stage yet, but governments and central banks are trying to spare us from a coronavirus-induced depression. They're unleashing a fire hose of stimulus measures that eventually could surpass $2 trillion — an amount exceeding the gross domestic products of Brazil, Russia or South Korea.