Many observers in Washington, not least of which Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, are mesmerised by parallels between today and the 1930s. Yet the parallels between the earlier boom years of this new millennium and the 1920s are actually far more compelling.

The monetary policy responses to the 1929 and 2008 crashes could not have been more different, with the former followed by tightening and the latter by a shift into overdrive. Yet the policy stances during the pre-crash Roaring Twenties and Noughties were - not coincidentally - extremely similar.