Having taken interest rates to the extreme and then well beyond, the most visible effects have been a series of asset price bubbles from property to shares and bonds, but precious little real investment in productive activity.
Late last year, China's Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang went all funky and unveiled "The New Normal"; a strategy to shift growth in the world's second biggest economy from massive state-led and debt-funded infrastructure programs to a more market oriented, consumer led model for growth.
It was a great plan on paper and the slogan was infinitely more hip than the Cultural Revolution's brutal campaign of "Thinking in New Ways".
But the implementation appears to be going off the rails.
Central to the plan was to develop the stock market, not just to encourage new entrepreneurs but to enable state owned or controlled enterprises to raise private capital in an effort to wean them off state funding.
Borrowing restrictions were lifted, an historic link forged with the Hong Kong exchange as both The People's Daily and the official Xinhua news agency published articles linking a rising market to a buoyant economy.
Ordinary citizens heeded the call as the number of regular retail investors soared to 90 million, many of them borrowing heavily to get a slice of the government endorsed action as margin loans grew to $360 billion.
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