The shock of the new

When it comes to the financial crisis, you would be forgiven for thinking we've seen it all before. But take a closer look, says Merryn Somerset Webb, and you'll see these are unprecedented times.

Almost everything has some kind of historical precedent. Look quickly at where our economies are today and you might think you see nothing new. After all, countries have been in debt before. Empires have destroyed themselves with money printing before. Bond yields have been low for decades before. And currency unions have collapsed before. But look a little closer and you will see that a good deal of what is happening in the global economy really is unprecedented.

Take interest rates. The UK base rate remains at its lowest level since usable records began in 1694. Then bond yields. A report from Deutsche Bank notes that they are at all-time lows all over the place. In Holland, ten-year yields hit their lowest levels in 495 years back in June.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.