There's a Breathless Hush in the Close To-night

I'm afraid Stevie boy's reduced this immortal line to: there's an eerie sense of calm in the global economy. But still poetry probably isn't his strong point, and I don't suppose he was brought up on the likes of Henry Newbolt. I'm also pretty sure he wasn't thinking of the bit about the sand of the desert being sodden red. More to the point 'the Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead' - of course I'm talking about the Fed's last stand and there's no hidden metaphor with Iraq either intended or to be looked for. So come on everybody: 'Play up! play up! and play the game!' coz last one out of the showers and into the bar is a sucker.

There’s an eerie sense of calm in the global economy. Growth in the industrial world came to a near standstill in late 2002 and has shown little signs of life since. This has led to a peaking in the global trade cycle, putting new pressure on most trade-dependent economies in the developing world -- with the notable and important exception of China. Then came the shock. The world is still in the process of absorbing the impacts of war and the uncertainty of the peace that follows. While the global economy has hardly collapsed, I am reminded of how calm it always seems in the eye of the storm. I continue to fear that this storm is far from over. I worry much more about the downside of another recession than I do about the upside of a victory recovery.
Source: Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley Global Economic Forum
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