Central bankers 'in a hole' over economic slowdown

Tokyo

THE world's leading central bankers found themselves "in a hole" at the end of last week - literally in that they were meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and figuratively in that they could find no easy way to help the global economy out of the hole it has stumbled into. Perhaps it was because they lack a "holistic" approach.

This year's Jackson Hole gathering marked the nearest we have come yet to a formal admission by central bankers that the so-called unconventional monetary policy has about reached the limits of its effectiveness, and that marginal returns on monetary easing diminish each time new actions are taken.