Blessed are the creditors, for they shall inherit the earth. This is not in the Sermon on the Mount. Yet creditors believe it: if everybody were a creditor, we would have no unpaid debts and financial crises. That, creditors believe, is the way to behave. They are mistaken. Since the world cannot trade with Mars, creditors are joined at the hip to the debtors. The former must accumulate claims on the latter. This puts them in a trap of their own making.

Three of the world’s four largest economies – China, Germany and Japan – are creditors: they run current account surpluses, in good and in bad times (see charts). They believe they are entitled to lecture debtors on their follies. China, an ascendant superpower, enjoys berating the US for its imprudence. Japan, a US ally, is more discreet. Germany’s ambitions are closer to home. It wishes to turn its eurozone partners into good Germans, instead.