I understand why the pendulum has swung so heavily the other way.

Yet today the pendulum has arguably swung too far in the opposite direction.

Even in the United States, economic performance has remained mediocre, with growth hovering around 1.5 for the last few quarters.

Gradually, the balance of advantage swung away from the Communist leadership especially after Mikhail Gorbachev took over as Soviet leader and back toward Solidarity.

In response, China s export performance swung from 26 annual growth in July 2008 to a 27 contraction by February 2009.

It had swung too far in the direction of chaos under Yeltsin, and has now swung too far in the direction of order and state control under Putin.

In the decade after September 11, 2001, the pendulum of public sentiment swung too far to the security pole but it has begun to swing back in the absence of major new terrorist attacks.

If anything, today s exchange rate swings are likely to be more extreme, and to last longer, than the surge in the dollar s value in the 1980s or the volatility of the 1930s, when, in the aftermath of the financial crash that triggered the Great Depression, countries competed to devalue their currencies.