Not Quite the End of Alchemy

Central banks are impotent and out of ammunition. There is much talk about this ridicule among economists, seeing central bankers' futile efforts to recover optimism and economic growth. No less than Mervyn King, former Bank of England governor, had to admit that sense of powerlessness in his new book The End of Alchemy.

King's confession carries some truth. Various central banks, like those in Europe and Japan, have deployed a myriad of policies-from quantitative easing, which is basically printing money to buy government bonds, to squeezing the interest rates to a negative level. And still, the economy refuses to rise from its stupor.