I have been out of the world of international finance and economic forecasting for more than four years, but much of what I learned during my 30 years working full-time in the field still influences how I view the world.

One lesson was to measure an entity’s economic and financial performance by how it compares both to the entity’s underlying potential and the market’s valuation of its performance. Applying this approach to the major economies gives rise to some surprising observations – and possibilities.