The new economic normal isn’t anything we’ll recognise

Ever since the world was hit by a once-in-a-century pandemic, there’s been a lot of talk about “normalisation”. US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell talks about the normalisation of aggregate supply conditions and the labour market. Home builders talk about a return to normal interest rates and market conditions. Hotel operators talk about the normalisation of leisure and business travel . And retailers of all types talk about the normalisation of their product mixes (for example, Bath & Body Works has been selling much less hand sanitiser.) Here’s the rub: we can’t roll back the clock to 2019’s economy, and nobody knows which …