We don’t need no explanations

We know that growth of the global economy is not as it was in earlier eras – and International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde last month warned explicitly of a “low-growth trap” or the danger of disappointing growth being with us for a long time. “Forceful policy actions are needed to reinvigorate growth and share its benefits more widely,” she said in a blog at the beginning of September. Linking her message to the then impending G20 Summit meeting in China, she pointed out that “2016 will be the fifth consecutive year with global GDP growth below its long-term average of 3.7 percent (1990-2007), and 2017 may well be the sixth”. And it is not the first time this year that the club of central bank governors is ringing the alarm bells. In the World Economic Outlook update in July, the IMF said that “Growth in most advanced economies