Whichever form it takes, it will not be taken lightly. In the US and Europe, especially, central bankers have been dropping big hints that it's time for politicians to step up to the plate and take the hard decisions. But nobody on Capitol Hill is going to start talking about how to repair America's finances until after the presidential election in November. The long-term solutions to the eurozone crisis - greater fiscal union, Eurobonds, EU-wide deposit insurance - will require many summits, parliamentary votes and plebiscites to implement. As for fixing the global trade and financial imbalances that got us to this point - that may take a generation.
Time is against us. Hence the likely resumption of quantitative easing - four of nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee voted for it in June. Usually, QE is good news for asset markets. Free money is a powerful tide that will float all boats. Riskier assets like shares and commodities will rise. The dollar will weaken, safe-haven bond yields will rise from their lows.
But in other senses, more QE is profoundly depressing. For a start, it is difficult to ascertain whether it is actually having much effect in the real world. Many suspect the cash released by QE is simply being hoarded in the financial system. Others point out that low borrowing costs are not much use if demand for credit is low - after all, George Osborne is forever telling us that the solution to a debt crisis cannot be more debt.
There's the question, little discussed so far, of what will happen to all the gilts that the Bank of England is buying - it now owns around a third of all gilts in issue. Will they be sold back, or written off? Nobody knows.
Finally, there's the moral dimension to QE. One effect that is easy to quantify is its impact on savers, retirees and those approaching retirement. QE is hastening the demise of defined-benefit pensions, depressing annuity rates to disastrously low levels, slashing the income available to those in drawdown and forcing income investors to take on higher levels of risk for little extra reward. All to clear up after a decade of excessive debt-fuelled consumption that nobody acted to contain. Its economic effects may be unclear, but morally it is repugnant.
