Mere days ago, in what feels like a different era now, the biggest thing that people in control of money appeared to fear was complacency. Stock markets in the United States were surging, enthralled by the regulation-slashing, tax-shrinking predilections of President Trump. Every major economy in the world was expanding.

The worst that could happen, the money masters averred, was that investors would be lulled into reckless investments, taking on too much risk in the belief that the dangers of the marketplace had been tamed.

As it turns out, the dangers were already at work. A decade-long era of easy access to money engineered by central banks in Asia, Europe and the United States was ending, opening a new chapter in which corporations would have to pay more to borrow and ordinary people would have to pay more to finance homes, cars and other purchases.

To digest the wild swings in stocks and bonds from New York to London to Tokyo is to absorb this uncomfortable realization taking hold.