Today, we have the very reverse of many of these positives, with both living standards and productivity well down on the pre-crisis levels of six years ago. Most forms of mass house building – the true solution to “homes they can afford” – are meanwhile regarded as a kind of national blight. The only things that seem to keep us going at all, raising us somewhat above the economic disaster zone of much of the rest of Europe, are continued very high levels of deficit spending and the parallel stimulus of ultra accommodative monetary policy. These are the things that truly mark the UK, and the much larger US economy, out from the pack – willingness to mortgage our futures in pursuit of short-term growth, in the hope that this eventually provides the wherewithal to meet the payments on our growing debt obligations.