Occasionally, there is an unreal moment on television when the movement of the speaker’s lips bears no relation to what you hear. Something very similar is happening as regards the conduct of monetary policy in the downswing of the global credit cycle.

What you can hear is a legitimate expression of concerns by central bankers and some economists about easing monetary policy too fast or at all. But it is out of “synch” with the script, so to speak, which is about something quite different, namely the banking crisis. The early cost estimates approximate those of the Japanese banking crisis in the early 1990s and overshadow any of the other 112 banking crises since 1970, according to a study by the World Bank.