Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free. Most of the things we've done since the credit crunch have worsened our situation Politicians cannot legislate against recessions, any more than they can order the course of the stars. When they try to do so, they usually make things worse. In Britain, as in most developed economies, ministers and central bankers have been congratulating themselves on avoiding a depression. The markets, however, remain stubbornly unimpressed. They can see that governments sought to ward off the contraction with non-existent money: that is, through borrowing and through printing additional banknotes. Such policies can perk us up in the short term, just as another hit can make a junkie feel better for a while. But the junkie soon finds that he needs bigger and bigger hits. Eventually, if he wants to recover, he has to go through the painful process of withdrawal. For years, we were shooting up on cheap credit. Governments around the world fed our habit, keeping interest rates artificially low, rewarding debt and penalising thrift. The crunch of 2008 was, or ought to have been, a market correction. UPDATE : Allister Heath puts it beautifully : "It is pathetic to see capitalism's finest permanently begging the Fed to step in and create yet more liquidity, pushing