It is easy to dismiss gatherings of global policymakers as ineffective and last weekend’s G20 meeting fits the bill. There were no new initiatives, no co-ordinated plan to deal with what, according to some data and many forecasters, is starting to look like a gloomy slide into worldwide recession.

The great and the good that gathered in Shanghai offered only the same old bromides about the need for global co-ordination, a more active fiscal policy and greater infrastructure spending. They could not even agree what to make of the latest wrinkle in developed market monetary policy, namely negative interest rates.

But what did anyone realistically expect? Co-ordinated intervention in the foreign exchange markets, for example, was never very likely. The Plaza Accord is still a dirty word in Chinese policy circles, as Medley Global Advisors, a macro research service owned by the Financial Times, reminds us. Even unilateral intervention is only being contemplated by Japan right now to counter an appreciating yen, and then only if its captains of industry are calling for it — which they are not.