The bankers and the hedge fund owners did well out of QE, but the side-effect of footloose money searching the globe for high yields was higher food and fuel prices.
But now Valentine's Day is one of the best dates to be footloose and fancy free as museums and attractions cotton on to the fact that not everyone wants to spend the evening gazing at a loved one across a candlelit table for two.
The Federal Reserve, which has kept printing money for the past five years, will slow the presses in 2014 as the economy recovers; this will boost American interest rates and the dollar, luring footloose capital back to American shores".
Good air links, cheap homes and a vibrant cultural life make it easy to attract footloose talent, says Cynthia McCague, Coke's personnel chief.Famous firms attract less well-known ones to set up nearby.
Instead he used the limited funds available to him to lower tax rates on corporate profits: a pitch for footloose multinational investors to choose Britain.Nor was it a budget steeped in social conservatism.
These are not subject to the same constraints as central banks to hold liquid assets and their aim is to maximise returns.This means, says Mr Jen, that oil exporters' assets are more footloose than those of Asian central banks.
A social-housing system less reliant on waiting lists would make workers more footloose.
The fashion for being an entrepreneur may also prove a permanent cultural shift, rather than merely an artefact of the current extraordinary stockmarket.Ira Kay of Watson Wyatt, a human-capital consultancy, is advising many of his traditional clients to give up competing with start-ups for the most footloose employees.
The footloose relationships that food companies often have with suppliers can spring nasty surprises.Even before the horsemeat hoo-ha, there were rumbles of change.
And China joined the World Trade Organisation, marking the arrival of a powerful competitor to Mexico for footloose manufacturers hoping to export to the United States.
That would both accommodate the footloose lives of young Britons, but also reflect how they like to do their politics: online and with reference to their social networks.
