But FDR worsened the financial collapse he inherited from Hoover by raising taxes, pursuing a tight money policy and failing to rescind the Smoot-Hawley trade tariffs.

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This is especially worrying because it means that, despite holding its own rates to record lows and feeding money into the economy through quantitative easing, the Bank of England is ever less able to offset tight fiscal policy with loose money.

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Brazil, meanwhile, is struggling with an economic-policy cocktail that blends a strong currency, loose fiscal policy and tight money.

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In the early 1980s, a high exchange rate, the product of tight fiscal policy and tight money, was the agent of recession and unemployment.

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