The ripple effect of the 16-day U.S. government shutdown that made headlines around the world earlier this month has now started to make waves across the planet, showing the real weight of the dollar in the global economic pool.

Earlier this week the Bank of Canada spoke about the need of future interest-rate increase, avoiding the language it used in earlier decision concerning ‘gradual normalisation’, while the central banks of Norway, Sweden, and the Philippines decided yesterday to postpone raising their interest rates further into the future as well. The announcements bolster the Federal Reserves’ plan to delay the withdrawal of its stimulus plan until well into next year. But it is not just the big players who join the movement: from Hungary to Chile, emerging markets around the world have cut interest rates in the past two months.

With inflation and job growth in the industrial world stubbornly refusing to climb to higher levels and a weakening in developing nations, policy makers continue their path of monetary easing in an attempt to jolt global growth from its stagnant position. If recent economic history has taught us anything, however, it is that stimulus creates asset bubbles that play havoc on the markets when they finally burst. And the current bubble has already been inflated by drastic home-price increases across the globe and the MCSI World Index of developed-world stock markets dangerously inching towards its highest level since 2007.

Some economists warn that the current conditions of central bankers pumping liquidity into the markets and promising to keep interest rates down are not normal. Yet, such has been the environment for five years now, as monetary authorities have sought to protect global economy from deflation and have turned to quantitative easing as a means to expedite its recovery. But to what cost?

The financial rewards have so far been limited. The International Monetary Fund this month has clipped its projections for global economic growth from 3.1 to 2.9 percent for 2013, and from 3.8 to 3.6 percent for 2014. It also expects most central banks across wealthy nations to favour lower inflation rates which already fall below the 2 percent average.