have said before that growth has had its day. This is not to say that standards of living will decline if growth falls : my view is that they are likely to rise significantly in line with scientific, technological and organisational progress which will not be captured in the consumption numbers. As far as I am concerned a better life but consuming less. Another link to demonstrate the ridiculousness of growth targets and this is from wikipedia and HNWIs ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNWI If the consumption habits of the ultra-HNWIs are anything to go by then we are all done for : 8 cars and 3 houses each and 75% with an aircraft. I assume that we all aspire to that lifestyle? Disagree with some previous posters that looking at what has happened to nominal GDP is not useful and you should look at real GDP. Agree looking a t real GDP is important but the fact the last recession was the first in the post war period that saw a fall in nominal GDP is important. Firstly conventional monetary policy becomes very difficult in this sort of deflationary environment as interest rates can't be pushed below inflation. Keynes said that prices and wages are sticky downward if your nominal revenues are falling you can't reduce costs just by leaving rents and wages fixed. In the propoerty sector rents normally have upward only rent reviews. Negative nominal GDP can be worse in this environment having the same amount of negative real GDP but