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With beggar-my-neighbour policies, the post-coronavirus recession descends into a great depression.

The chaos led to the election of extremist governments in Germany and elsewhere, to competitive devaluations and beggar-my-neighbour tariffs, to trade wars and, ultimately, to the horrors of the second world war.

Putin brings experience, preparation, ruthless discipline and actual goals: he is the poker ace facing a man who has mastered only beggar-my-neighbour.

A single currency demands disciplines and painful trade-offs: but floating exchange rates after a financial crisis are a transmission mechanism for bank-runs and beggar-my-neighbour devaluations.

Tax "competition" is economic warfare: a beggar-my-neighbour race to the bottom, worse than a zero-sum game.