An editorial in the Times of London by Philip Aldrick. "In a Blackrock Investment Institute paper last month, three top central bankers argued for 'magic money tree' policies to respond to the next downturn. Under their 'monetary-financed fiscal facility,'central banks print money that the government can hand out to the public through tax rebates or spend on infrastructure, education or whatever they fancy."

"The authors, including Philipp Hildebrand, the former Swiss central bank governor, Stanley Fischer, former vice-chairman at the US Federal Reserve, and Jean Boivin, the Bank of Canada’s deputy governor, call this 'going direct.' If it sounds familiar that’s because 'it is as old as the first case of hyperinflation . . . examples include the Weimar Republic in the 1920s as well as Argentina and Zimbabwe,' they write. The difference this time is that there would be 'a credible coordination framework' between the government and the central bank."

"But do we want these policies? Who knows what social poison they contain? It’s well established that QE deepens wealth inequality and studies show it weighs on productivity, hitting incomes. A poll by the Resolution Foundation think tank found that only a third of politicians would support QE in future, suggesting it lacks democratic consent. And that’s before any Japanese quasi-socialist tweaks or magic money tree economics."

"Not enough attention is given to the consequences of central bank policies. If it had been with QE in 2009, perhaps the asset rich would have borne more of the pain and the years of austerity have been different. How can a government oppose nationalisations or Zimbabwe-style monetary financing, if that is what its central bank is doing?"

"Blackrock is right. Unprecedented measures will be needed in the coming downturn but not by the central banks. They need to say 'enough' and hand responsibility to politicians, where it belongs. Not distort the world any further."

The Nikkei Asian Review. "Investors and fund managers worldwide are coming to grips with a growing phenomenon: a huge and rapidly expanding pile of negative-yielding debt. The global stock of bonds with negative yields has doubled since the beginning of the year to around $17 trillion. Investors are snapping up such debt even though they are guaranteed to suffer a loss if they hold it to maturity, betting on further rises in bond prices."

"Speculation is swirling that central banks will further ease their already super-loose monetary policies in response to signs of economic downturns. In Europe, one bank is even letting homebuyers take out mortgages at a negative rate, which basically means it is willing to pay customers to borrow money. This is fueling concern about a new asset price bubble in the region."

"Now, a quarter of the world's investment-grade debt securities bear subzero yields. Negative-yielding bonds are proliferating especially in Europe and Japan, where the central banks have pushed down their rates below zero. Swiss government bonds, for example, now have negative yields all the way out to 2064, 45 years down the road."

"In Europe, financial institutions can raise funds at negative costs. And in August, Jyske Bank, Denmark's third-largest bank, started offering a 10-year fixed-rate mortgage with an interest rate of -0.5%, becoming the world's first bank to pay money to mortgage borrowers. 'Right now we have a historic remortgaging on house owners' debt,' said Mikkel Hoegh, housing economist at the bank."

"Negative borrowing costs are fueling a housing boom in Denmark. The housing price index compiled by Statistics Denmark, the government statistics agency, rose to an all-time high of 116.1 in the first quarter of 2019, using 2015 as a base of 100. If rising house prices stimulate speculative housing investment, the risk of a bubble will increase."

"But the world economy is beginning to falter despite the extremely easy money environment that has been in place since the global financial crisis that started in 2008. This has cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that low interest rates are the answer."

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. "Australian economist Stephen Koukoulas had just taken up a position with TD Securities in London in 2007. The office overlooked a branch of Newcastle-based bank Northern Rock. Around the middle of the year, one of TD's foreign exchange dealers couldn't contain his surprise as a queue hundreds of metres long formed out of the Northern Rock branch's door."

"'What the fook!' he exclaimed in a heavy Geordie accent. Nervous deposit holders were trying to get their savings out."

"Even though the terms 'global financial crisis' and 'great recession' were more than a year from being coined, events playing out at that bank branch were enough to convince Koukoulas that the world economy was in real trouble."

"A decade on from the depths of the crisis, the Australian economy has recorded its worst result in 10 years – a paltry 1.4 per cent gross domestic product growth in 2018-19. Per person, GDP shrank for the first time since the global recession. The question being posed in boardrooms, cabinet meetings and lounge rooms now: Is it time to panic?"

"Combined with reducing underemployment, which is currently north of 13 per cent, the RBA wants hundreds of thousands more Australians in work or working more hours than the government is forecasting. The RBA's decision to cut official interest rates in June and July, some within the government have argued, should have happened earlier. Others believe the RBA should go even further and take rates to zero if not lower."

"But RBA governor Philip Lowe has openly called on politicians to do their part to boost economies. In a speech in the US state of Wyoming just a fortnight ago, Lowe said the benefits of ever-lower interest rates were almost at an end. Good quality infrastructure spending and productivity-enhancing economic reforms were needed to get economies motoring again."

"'Monetary policy can't drive long-term growth, but the other policy levers can. Relying on monetary policy risks further increases in asset prices in a slowing economy, which is an uncomfortable combination,' he said. 'And a failure to meet community expectations could lead to a political response that undercuts the credibility of central banks and undermines their effectiveness. It is hard to predict exactly how this might work out, but the answer is not well.'"

From CNBC TV on India. "The prevailing economic slowdown in the country might not be a short 'soft patch' and could be attributed to a combination of structural and cyclical factors, the Reserve Bank of India's former governor YV Reddy said. While stating that it is difficult to diagnose the nature of India’s economic slump, the RBI, in its 2018-19 annual report, said that it could be a soft patch mutating into a cyclical downturn."

"'When you tie up with tier-II countries you may be able to withstand the crisis. In a way, finance will now be a sub-set of economic issues and economic issues will be a sub-set of political issues, unlike in the past,' said Reddy, adding that before 2008, finance was leading and now politics is going to lead."

"'Tension between nationalism and globalisation will only intensify rather than reduce in the near future,' said Reddy."