It's ever so easy...

• Britain is running a Trade Deficit

• The Government is running a Budget Deficit

• The Banks are lending money that doesn't exist

We're bust:

Who cares? Spending = growth, according to those who know about these things.. those doing the talking, anyway. Well I'm doing my bit. I sold a house at a nice profit and am happily blowing the proceeds as fast as I can. It will take the bloke who bought it the next 30 years of his working life to pay off what 's keeping me in shandies in the here-and-now.. but that's economics for you.

The level of personal debt in the UK is at a record high at about £1.5 trillion - with average income earners on £25K spending £3900 on interest payments. And has this money that's been sucked out of disposable income and into the banks meant lower sales in the shops? Course not... they lent it back to the suckers on credit cards so that 'growth' could carry on regardless.

Nobody can fathom it. There are about 100 houses in this village. Say they were worth £5m ten years ago, in total. And say they're worth £20m now. Where has the extra come from? Is everybody 4 times as well off? Nope. If everyone here tried to realise the asset value of their home, it would be like a run on a bank. Yet we've had banks falling over themselves to lend on this notional sum. Where did they get the money from? There's more cash in the system than can be accounted for by wealth generated from earnings.

Oh dear, it's all unravelling... Well, there are two ways the country can go.

1> Print more money. Pretend nothing is happening (HM Govt.'s preferred option).

2> Cut consumption until it falls somewhere close to earnings, and get the country working harder.

What a coincidence. Option 2 is exactly what the lazy bloated lardarses that so symbolise the Britain of 2008 need to do, and so spectacularly fail at, blaming everything except binge-consuming for their over-inflated girths. Just like them, the flabby British economy will either burst or die if it doesn't find some self-control over its inputs and outputs.

It's unsustainable. There's going to be a reckoning. Unemployment and/or inflation is going to rocket and services will collapse until they hit a value floor. I can't see the government having the guts stomach courage to do the necessary to control it, so the market itself will have to sort things out by forcibly applying the gastric bypass. Nurse! The screens! This is going to be messy!