Amid the gloom, flickers of light. Barack Obama says he has seen “glimmers of hope” for the economy. Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, said “the sense of a ball falling off a table” is passing. Less evocatively, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, said this week that “recently we have seen tentative signs that the sharp decline in economic activity may be slowing”. They are right: the descent is less rapid. But a truly sustainable recovery remains a distant prospect.

Last autumn, after the implosion of Lehman Brothers, the US economy came to a sudden stop. During the last three months of 2008, household consumption – which, until mid-2008, had been rising for 17 consecutive years – fell by 1.1 per cent. Output fell by 1.6 per cent, industrial production by 5.6 per cent and non-farm employment by 2m. However, recent retail and confidence indices suggest that the pace of decline may be easing.

This was to be expected. The potent stimulant of falling energy prices has been feeding into the US economy for some months. Credit conditions have stopped tightening as fears that further systemically important institutions might collapse have cleared.