Toyota Motors, like automakers worldwide, is topping up the tank from state coffers. The funds will be pumped into its financing arm – via a policy bank – from Japan’s $1,000bn foreign exchange reserves. That a group once dubbed the Bank of Toyota for its financial solidity needs such help is a bleak sign of the times.

It is also a neat solution to another problem. At root, foreign reserves exist to avert currency crises: when devaluation spirals out of control, central banks deploy their dollars to buy local currency. Asia, whose kitties were demonstrably not up to this task in 1997-98, has learnt its lesson. Now, however, the region’s $4,000bn of reserves are excessive.