Ken Fisher, the billionaire US fund manager, columnist and author, is not one to mince his words, it seems. At a conference in Sydney yesterday, he lambasted the central investment thesis of bonds giant Pimco as "idiotic".

Close to two years ago now, Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of Pimco, began to use the term "New Normal" to describe a new world of high unemployment, slower growth, de-leveraging and more regulation in the west, offset by stronger performance in the developing economies.