“May you live in interesting times,”* is said to be a Chinese blessing or curse and we are today living through not only interesting times in economics and finance but unique ones in the history of commerce…”At a Parliamentary Committee hearing a few years ago I asserted, boldly, that global interest rates were at their lowest-ever levels. A wise colleague challenged me afterwards: “How do you know they weren’t lower in Babylonian times?” Several exhausted research assistants later I can report that, luckily, I was on safe ground. Interest rates appear to be lower than at any time in the past 5000 years.”