Last week, he completed a study into mental illness across six countries which found the rate of major depression and panic syndrome was highest among men in Britain.

The willingness of investors to pin their hopes on a rate cut is understandable: after all, that has been the response of the Fed to every financial panic since the stock market crash of 1987.

The core central-banking doctrine of lending freely though at a penal rate during a financial panic was set out by Walter Bagehot, an early editor of The Economist, in "Lombard Street".