The Master of Balliol College, Andrew Graham, who is an economist, has written an article in today's Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/17/economy-debt-public-sector-recovery

wherein he accuses the would-be instant deficit slashers of ignoring the risks of a double-dip recession.

There was also good news for tax-exiles:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/17/tax-exiles-government-crackdown

And some interesting commentary on the US economy and its relationship with China:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/17/china-sells-us-treasury-bonds

If we do have a double dip recession which then continues into a worldwide depression, I'm going out on a limb and putting my money on this becoming the 'end of capitalism' crisis: because the transferral of wealth from the workers to the entrepreneurs and fat-cat capitalists only works in a democracy as long as the workers are complicit in the exchange.

So, either capitalism will have to go, or democracy.

Of course, the conjoined twins of capitalism and democracy could be rescued, but that would mean that the voters acquiesced to it: and they're just not going to do that if Bankers are paying themselves huge bonuses, while the workers look for jobs on much-reduced welfare.

This is what happens when ordinary folk see through the magic trick: it no longer becomes magic.

The upper classes of all nations have feathered their nests with no regard to the ordinary folk around them. They have avoided taxation as something fit only for the workers and the middle-classes, using non-residence as an excuse. If this loophole is closed to them, because all the rest of the world-in-recession will think of them similarly, then there will be nowhere civilised for them to flee to.

Somalia, your time has come.