The global economy seemed to be on the mend when the International Monetary Fund met for its spring meeting in Washington 10 years ago. Alan Greenspan had cut official interest rates in the US to 1% after the collapse of the dotcom boom and the world's biggest economy had responded to the treatment. Gordon Brown was chancellor of the exchequer and the UK was in its 12th year of uninterrupted growth. Companies in the west were flocking to China now that it was part of the World Trade Organisation. The talk was of offshoring, just-in-time global supply chains and integrated capital markets. The expectation was that the ... (full story)