Of
Claus Hulverscheidt, Berlin
One of the comforting things in life that even children cling to is the experience that night follows day and rain comes sunshine. From an economic point of view, too, one could usually rely on this law: downturns were followed by upswings, and recessions were followed by booms. For a while it even looked as if only the sun was shining in some Western industrialized countries: From the mid-1980s to 2007, things went uphill in many places almost constantly, while at the same time the previously fluctuating inflation rates settled down to more and more tolerable levels. There has already been talk of the “end of the economic cycle” and of the “great moderation”. And even when the economy did collapse, as it did after the attacks of September 11, 2001, it quickly recovered. The states even put up with the financial crisis of 2008.