People don’t spend during fearful times, and the pandemic has been a classic example. We squirrelled away our earnings and paid down debts, putting off that new washing machine or Xbox for another day. But as optimism slowly returns, we are spending again – and using credit cards and overdrafts to make it go further.

Unfortunately, manufacturers can’t keep up, and it’s causing inflation. The same thing happened after the second world war, says economic historian Sean H Vannatta, and nations like the UK and US used credit controls to restrict people’s borrowing.

Such ideas have been heresy since the free-market 1980s, and governments are now relying on consumer borrowing to fuel a COVID recovery. But Vannatta thinks it could be time for credit controls to come in from the cold.

Separately, we look at the current labour shortages, and weigh the pros and cons for workers and the gig economy. And we explore how job-seeking is made to seem like a religious pilgrimage, and how this affects unemployed people.

Finally, this week’s podcast is about neuroplasticity, the quality in our brains that makes younger people more adaptable. New research in this field could fight diseases – and potentially super-charge our learning capabilities.

Steven Vass

Business + Economy Editor

In the years after the second world war, credit was in short supply. Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy

Consumer borrowing was heavily restricted in 1940s to curb inflation – it’s time we did it again

Sean H. Vanatta, University of Glasgow

Consumer spending fuelled by credit cards and bank loans has become central to economic growth, but it wasn’t always.

Overearth/Shutterstock

Job seeking is the religious pilgrimage of the 21st century

Tom Boland, University College Cork

Not only is much of the language associated with job-seeking religious but so are the ways in which people approach success and failure in the process.

Astrocytes: these cells could be part of the key to unlocking the mystery of how brains change their structure. Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock

The biological switch that could turn neuroplasticity on and off in the brain – podcast

Gemma Ware, The Conversation; Daniel Merino, The Conversation

From the archive: new research helps unpick clues about the brain’s ability to change its structure. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.

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