[Traduk]

Who could possibly have known that if you adopt the completely wrong policies at totally the wrong time in global financial history that you make matters worse.

It was obvious in the pre-election discussions that if they adopted the Canadian austerity model (1993 to 1999) in a global downturn rather than the global boom that Canada were fortunate enough to pick, that we were in for serious problems.

The writing has been on the wall for the Western economies to which we export since 2007 and commodity prices have been in an up trend for years.

Against such a back drop it was lunacy to expect growth in the private sector to mitigate contraction in the public sector.

Soon we will see the worst of both world's with ongoing contraction in global marketplaces which will place downward pressure on growth, costs will continue to rise and the public sector job losses will compound the government expenses going out (benefit payments) with a simultaneous reduction in tax take.

Doing the simplistic right thing at the wrong time can as is being proven and will haunt us horribly make a bad situation much worse. Thatcher was accused of using "handbag economics" but this government set on a path akin to paying down a credit card so as to avoid interest charges against a back drop of reducing income with which to pay back. A reasonable idea to begin with but becomes problems on steroids without growth.

The measure of the robustness of a financial model is the ability to withstand shocks. We have been put in a position whereby we could not be much weaker and there is potential for plenty of shocks to come our way from Europe. Greece is the current wild card which unlikely to have have positive long term outcome. Sarkosy and Merkel are having almost weekly summits to plan the planning of the plan and as their agenda appears more political than financial I can see the money men calling time on the talking shop.

Having experienced the 70's and 80's I had hoped never to see the like again but I strongly suspect that this lot will be substantially worse. We the boomers had three parts of nothing through the 60's and were used to fairly low expectations which in part allowed for a great deal of tolerance to the decade+ long financial problems of the 70's.

The cohort that are our children have known no such difficulties but I suspect they will endure a period of difficulty which will be difficult if not nigh on impossible to bear. Collectively they are are a generation of "I want it all and now". How they will respond to going backwards at the speed of light doesn't bear thinking about but I think in time it could become ugly, Greek style.

In another thread the intergenerational group think that older people should be encouraged to sell large house to release stock. My wife and I retain ours as a bolt hole of last resort for our children and grandchildren. Three generations under one roof doesn't work but if things get bad enough and needs must we can protect our own which is satisfying for us and an insurance policy for them.

The phrases "too far, too fast" and absence of "plan B" are indicative of the young guns in a hurry and as supremely ironic as it may be , the only party that showed credibility at the last election was Labour albeit they would have needed a new leader and not the one they currently have.