The global economy is being hammered – that’s the message from Swiss bankers as the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos gets under way in earnest today. “I’ve never seen so many cross-currents at work,” Guy Miller, Zurich Insurance’s chief market strategist, tells me. On the menu for delegates: the effect of the pandemic, supply-chain problems made worse by China’s persistence with strict lockdowns, the war in Ukraine, inflation and the prospect of a recession.Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, the global economy was feeling the strain with supply chains, the shift away from fossil fuels and pent-up pandemic demand all pushing prices higher and forcing central banks to try to incentivise saving. “We thought that inflation would be peaking around now,” says Miller. Instead, the war in Ukraine and sanctions placed on Russia – a major source of oil, metals and food – have exacerbated an already confusing situation.