For bond investors, every country is an emerging market now

country an emerging market ought to spark a frisson of excitement. Such economies are meant to be on their way to being “developed”: integrated with the global financial and trade systems, growing stably and providing their citizens with high incomes. Because they aren’t quite there yet, they must pay their creditors a premium. Yet the label also applies to countries where policies have become a tad too thrilling to be trusted. Think of tricky customers like Argentina, whose profligacy made it a serial defaulter on its sovereign debt, or Turkey, where interest rates remain low even as inflation blazes above 80%. A growing cohort of blue-chip economies are now being talked about in similar terms—and the comparison is not meant to flatter. Britain made a spectacular entry into this financial purgatory in late September by unveiling plans for huge, unfunded tax cuts, sending the value of sterling crashing. It is far from the only wealthy country where government bonds have become unusually exciting. Worse, the dullness may not return for some time.