Reading John Redwood´s article - It´s quite good. Reality has to prevail eventually. At some stage the establishment/state/society is going to have to come to terms with reality after this last final (one hopes) gasping rush of romance with Keynesism(?).
And then what?
As I think we probably all accept it is going to get rough as the people with more power fight over the remaining globs of real wealth rather than the spirals in the sky they try to convince one are the real goodies.
I suppose the clues for survival will be around identifying that real wealth and somehow attaching some?

Yes Guy, I agree that we must not let the bank bailouts blind us to the fact that the Welfare State is bigger than the bailouts - and was already totally out of control before the bailouts.

However, I also agree that the bailouts (and the general expansion of the money supply which has gone to financial institutions that were not officially bailed out) has pushed us over the top.

Contrary to the establishment (the "Economist" magazine and so on) the economy has not been "saved" it has in fact been doomed. As even the German Chancellor (hardly a rabid free market extremist) warned last year if the policies of wild government spending (to "support demand" as the Keynesians would put it) and wild increase in the money supply (both to finance the "support for demand" and to officiallly and unofficially bailout variosu enterprises) went ahead then there would be a "worse financial crises within five years".

The lady was correct - but both Britain and (more importantly) the United States went ahead and did exactly what they should not have done (even Germany was forced to make a few gestures).

It was not invevitable - for example only a few years ago a massive financial bubble burst in South Korea, and the malinvestments were allowed to be liquidated. There was indeed a lot of pain - but the economy recovered .

As for the world economy - that depends upon China, and of China I know nothing. I do not even know what the real numbers are for credit money expansion in China.

So I can make no judgement about the world as a whole.

However, for the United States and Britain it is over - there may be a fake "recovery" next year (more likely in the United States than Britian - as their "stimulus" money is set to be spent in the lead up to the Congressional elections), but then it all goes

In the United States whoever wins the election in 2012 will inherit a "I would not start from here" situation, what politicians always say - accept this time it will be true. Even if the health care Bill does not pass (and it most likely will pass) it is hard to see what anyone could do - the system is heading for bankruptcy (and yes de facto bankruptcy can happen to a nation).

As for Britain - whoever wins the election next year is doomed (as the people will tend to blame whoever is in office). Nothing can be done to prevent bankruptcy now - it is too late.

It is a brutal as that.