I've just looked back and it was November last year when I blogged with a plea for sustainability to overtake the greed and unsustainable growth that the then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, was championing.
Now the chickens have come very firmly home to roost. I'm not one of those who feel aggrieved that we, the tax payers, have to foot the bill for all the borrowing. I'm content that government has done what is necessary to stop confidence pouring out of the economy. The alternative was unthinkable, so I won't even contemplate it.
But now that we're once again on an even keel - well, I hope we are - we shouldn't be talking about economics in terms of where we were because where we were was a very dangerous precipice. We need to be considering our future from a position well back from the edge of that particular cliff.
The middle classes, who will no doubt gripe about the reduction in their foreign holidays and the cost of taxing their cars, are not really hard up. They don't really have a clue what it's like counting the pennies - they have only ever counted tenners. The pensioners, God bless them, who spent their teens during WWII, will no doubt make do and mend, as they did then and consequently fare much better than those of use who have lived in more fortunate times.
Then there's a whole load of people who will have to come to terms, for the first time in their life, that when they want something they cannot necessarily just go out and buy it. They are going to have to start living within their means, taking some account of the value of their existing possessions. They will not be able to buy a new three piece suite for Christmas with payment deferred into eternity on a buy now, regret at leisure scheme. And thank goodness for it.
I long for the day when the whole high street is full of charity and used goods shops, and when builders take back to a builders' merchant all the excess that's left on site on the completion of a job. I actually want to have to meet my neighbours and enjoy their company rather than sit in my own house watching yet more TV. I want to live frugally and in harmony with the planet.
We've had a near miss with the banking crisis so please, let's learn some lessons. Let's have some real clear leadership on those matters that are of real importance and let's face up to the fact that our good fortune comes at a price for the planet and we squander it at our peril. Otherwise our next brush with disaster may be terminal and irreversible.
