Have we learned the lessons of too much dependence on the US for growth?

If the current opposition party wins the right to govern the UK at the next election, they will have an almost impossible challenge. The present incumbents (presently on the Government benches of the house), will ‘hound’ every move by any Minister who advocates spending cuts. Obviously, the very best solution is not to spend it in the first place. The rising debit of the UK is unsustainable, despite the UK retaining its TRIPLE A status. Making cuts in the here and now for monies (mis)spent in the past may turn out to be political suicide, but was it financial prudence by Alistair Darling? Gordon Brown made a courageous move and motivated US, Asian and European finance ministers to agree to certain measure to help the macro economy of a global scale. He did this against a background of the experience of the Great Depression of 1929 (which almost certainly paved the way for WW2). The great debate is were the measures taken the right ones. Evidence seems to suggest that the recession is shorter than it could have been, with the highly respected CBI forecasting recovery turnaround in 2010. It could have been much worse. In the US the sub-prime market was a scandal. Many consumers of sub prime mortgages were in no position to afford the US$600,000 homes they were being sold. Millions are now destitute, through criminal behaviour of US financial institutions. I do not believe the situation was so irresponsible here in the UK, but the impact to the UK economy, and to finance in particular was devastating. My own (inadequately informed) opinion is that Mr Brown and world leaders acted swiftly avert a global catastrophe, but as Mr Alan Greenspan alluded to recently in his interview as part of BBC2’s Love of Money season - “it will happen again - ITS HUMAN NATURE”.

Alan Greenspan - BBC\’s Love of Money season

Have we learned the lessons of too much dependence on the US for growth? Have we learned what was flawed in our human nature - insufficient governance?