Thanks Nate. That makes sense. I too am very pessimistic about the UK. We are strutting around the world - fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan - like we are still an Empire. It is a sad thing to see. Our politicos still think that we are a 'big player' because we have a bunch of nukes on submarines but in reality we can't even buy our troops decent kit. Our economy is now completely hollowed out: the two income streams which have been supporting the 00's debt binge, namely North Sea oil and The City of London, have now largely evaporated. We have next to no manufacturing base, and where we do make things our labour costs are still far, far too high to compete (and there is another raise in the minimum wage just around the corner). Even IT jobs are now outsourced. There is no one sector capable of dragging us out of our "economic downturn" (I love that phrase!).

Our national debt is stratospheric. Our personal debt is stratospheric. It has been stated by prominent organizations that just to contain our national debt there will need to be an income tax increase to 35% for everyone! The government blabbers on about how they are focused on ‘cutting the deficit in half by 2016’ and the few people who are still listening assume that they are talking about cutting the debt in half! A halved deficit is still adding to the debt!

The consumer binge-buying days are over, house prices are still unaffordable using any sane measurement, real wages are stagnant at best, and we are a massive net importer of food - if we were surrounded by U-boats again we would starve. Except this time it need not be U-boats, but a sliding pound. Our pension system is non existent and our school leavers are not nearly as well educated as they need to be if we are to 'compete' in the high-tech information-capital world envisaged by some; you know the sort. They say "leave the manufacturing to the Chinese and Indians and we will instead do the designing. Never mind that a production line can employ 100s of not-very-bright people to make a never-ending supply of clever unrequired gadgets but which have been designed by only a handful of bright people.

By any metric you care to judge the UK we are in trouble. And it all boils down to the fact that we continue to cling to the absurd assumption of 'business as usual' and the Golden Rule of Getting Elected: GDP Growth! Historians will look back at these times and mark them down as just another part of the Grand Cycle. Humans are seriously bad at planning for the future. We hate to do it. We only react to crises, never anticipate them. As I walk around my town here on the south coast of England I am amazed at the complacency - and ignorance. People do not want to have their comfortable, consumptive lives interrupted by reality. Even though I strongly detect an undercurrent of people ‘feeling that all is not quite right’.

One of my favourite charts is the one showing the time line from 5000BC to 5000AD and the tiny slither of the oil age as a spike in energy consumption. I am sure people know the one I mean. Our entire economic system of consumptive-based growth has only been in full swing for the last 150 years – maximum. In reality, more like the last 50 years. In historical terms this is nothing. We have no precedent for continued economic consumptive growth (with the ensuing population explosion). Cycles happen, just as you say in the lecture.

I am sure that none of this is news to the readers of The Drum. I just wish that the odd politician would start to understand. That is our biggest problem. Can you imagine if a politician stood up in parliament and said “we must stop this absurd, destructive GDP growth, stop borrowing money, roll back globalization and start to scale back our energy consumption now before it is too late”. They would be hounded out of office and ridiculed till the end of their days.

Ah well, there’s always beer!