On the face of it, drawing a line under the payment protection insurance mis-selling scandal seems a reasonable idea. There can be few consumers unaware of the gigantic scam perpetrated by the big banks during the 1990s and the 2000s. A time bar was first mooted by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for 2018, but now looks like being extended by a year to 2019. That sounds like good news for customers.

The banks are deeply unimpressed with the first big decision made by Andrew Bailey, the FCA chief executive, since his arrival from the Bank of England. Lloyds, RBS, Barclays and the other big lenders have all been making provisions for a line to be drawn in the sand in 2018.

Clearly, this is not good news for the banks, because a PPI bill that already stands at £37bn means weaker profits, smaller dividends and a lower share price. Nor is it marvellous news for a government which will find the uncertainty over the final cost of PPI unwelcome as it seeks to get rid of its stakes in Lloyds and RBS.

In fact, there should be no sympathy for the banks. The hefty costs they have incurred, are incurring, and will continue to incur as a result of PPI are entirely of their own making. As even a cursory look at the charge sheet shows, Bailey is still letting them off lightly.

Let’s start with the way the banks mercilessly and knowingly rooked their customers. PPI was not a case of mis-selling by the odd bad apple; it was mis-selling on an industrial scale. Regulation of the banks as they perpetrated this scam was somewhere on the scale between lax and non-existent.

Nor was there much contrition when the scandal finally came to light. On the contrary, when the regulator finally woke up to what was happening and said compensation should be paid, the banks fought the decision in the courts. It was only when Lloyds broke ranks that consumers started to get paid back.

Even then, consumers have had to battle against quite blatant foot-dragging on the part of the banks. The reluctance to settle legitimate claims is demonstrated by figures showing that 70% of complaints to the ombudsman about the refusal of banks to pay up have been upheld.

Consumer groups argue that only when the banks stop playing for time should a deadline for PPI claims even be considered. It’s hard to disagree.

Helicopter money looms closer in Japan

Going Japanese. It’s the fear that haunts policymakers the world over. Mario Draghi had the travails of the world’s third-biggest economy at the back of his mind when he made the case for negative interest rates in the eurozone. The risk of deflation helps explain why the US Federal Reserve has been so reluctant to push up the cost of borrowing and why the Bank of England has kept UK official rates at 0.5% for the past seven or so years.

Japan has been trying to get out of its economic mess for a quarter of a century. It demonstrates what can happen if countries fail to spot the root causes of a problem, fail to act quickly enough, and remove policy stimulus over-hastily. More pertinently, it provides a warning of what can happen when conventional economic tools cease to work.

The government of Shinzo Abe has just announced details of a supplementary budget designed to boost growth and drive inflation back up to its official 2% target. A 28tn yen package sounds like a lot of money, but as has tended to be the way in Japan, appearances can be deceptive. Half the 28tn yen is supposed to be extra spending by the private sector, and a further quarter will be the provision of cheap loans. The extra spending by the government amounts to 6tn yen, only 4.5tn yen of which will be spent in the current year.

Abe’s government says the fiscal measures will increase national output by 1.3% in the current year. That looks highly improbable given the modest size of the package. Lifting Japan out of its malaise is going to require something more radical, which is why the talk of helicopter money is becoming louder. And why Draghi et al are watching so closely.

Lack of strikes is not a sign of workplace harmony

Like bell-bottomed trousers and prog rock, industrial action is a relic of a bygone age. Official records stretch back to the 1890s and never in all that time have as few people been involved in disputes as the 81,000 who went on strike in 2015.

Nor was this a one-off. The post-war peak for days lost through strikes came in a period that embraced the miners’ strikes of 1972 and 1984-5 and the Winter of Discontent in 1978-9. Since then, the number of stoppages has dwindled.

So is this a golden era of workplace harmony? Hardly. Grievances have not disappeared. Brexit was partly caused by year after year of falling real wages. The difference is that with union power restricted and fewer workers covered by collective bargaining, employers call the shots.