Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan warned on Wednesday that the global economy bears an increasing resemblance to its condition in the 1930s

  • Says advanced economies are trying to pull out of the Great Recession at each other’s expense
  • Says competitive monetary policy easing has now taken the place of competitive currency devaluations as the favored tool for playing a zero-sum game that is bound to end in disaster
  • “Demand shifting” has taken the place of “demand creation”
  • The lack of coordination between policymakers is producing spillovers that may be difficult to control

More here: RBI’s Rajan Sees Risk of Financial Markets Crash

Worth a read (I particularly liked this bit:

  • A sudden shift in asset prices could happen in a variety of ways, Mr. Rajan said. The most obvious route would be as a result of investors chasing higher yields at a time when they believe central bank policies will protect them against a fall in prices.
    “They put the trades on even though they know what will happen as everyone attempt to exit positions at the same time – there will be major market volatility,” said Mr. Rajan.

Uh, yeah.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan

Why is this man smiling?