Twenty-five years ago, I heard a clutch of top American financial officials, including Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, offer advice to their Japanese counterparts about how to tackle a property crisis.

The essence of their message revolved around two words: “clearing prices”. As Japan reeled from the collapse of the 1980s property bubble, US officials urged its government to inject transparency into the market — and bank balance sheets — by trading bad assets in a way that would establish a “floor” for their values.

After all, they noted, that was how America exited its own 1980s Savings and Loans crisis: it auctioned bad loans via a Resolution and Trust Corporation, in a way that pulled opportunistic investors back into the market, and (re)built confidence in asset values.