No return to booming markets

With the US needing to borrow huge sums to fund its taste for overseas goods, its economy like others will be unable to match the returns that were seen in the 1980s

New paradigm. It's been a while since that phrase was bandied about. Investors became used to dizzyingly strong rates of economic growth in the late 1990s and all the time with none of the significant problematic accompaniments of old, such as inflation. Disinflation ruled as productivity boomed and new technology allowed production and transaction costs to fall. Investment returns for UK equities were positive for eight out of 10 years in the 1990s and all of those positive years were in double digits. A compounded annual rate of return of nearly 15% was achieved over the period. Gil...