Not only did the central banks act on an unprecedented scale, but they did so with an alacrity that betrayed the increasing disinhibition of the preceding decades. In 2008 there had still been a note of hesitancy about central bank interventions. In 2020, that was gone. The full implications of the opening of the monetary floodgates would become clear over the weeks that followed, as fiscal policy caught up. This was emergency action of the most radical kind. But what now was normality?
