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Easy credit got us into this mess. Will more easy credit get us out of it? Alistair Darling evidently thinks so: a £20bn package of pump-priming, plus tax cuts, to spur spending which, he hopes, will avoid an ugly recession turning into an unnecessary slump.
The perennial problem for any chancellor is that any budget measure, bar the most dramatic, meets with a miserable response from "case studies" to explain what it means to you.
TVs cheaper by a tenner because VAT is down? "Drop in the ocean, mate. You should see how much I spend at Tesco's. And he'll grab it all back in national insurance anyway." Maybe he should have emulated Taiwan's chancellor, who last week handed 23 million people a £70 voucher each to spend in shops.
Darling's job is to pull off a huge confidence trick. To convince households that times are tough but not catastrophic. That it still makes sense to buy a home, or a car, or even to start a business. That while unemployment will rise, it's unlikely to be you.
It's why he began yesterday by telling us his measures would ensure the downturn will be "shallower and shorter", and Britain is "well placed to benefit from a return to growth".
It didn't help that in August he told the truth - times are "arguably the worst they've been in 60 years".
Darling's problem is that household budgets are not just stretched, they've been stretched for years by rising house prices, food prices, fuel costs and council tax; and the elastic is now moving in the other direction, painfully fast. It was bad when the credit card was maxed out. It's a lot worse when the credit card is maxed out and you're worried about your job.
It is future income expectations, not next month's pay check, that determine our spending patterns. It would be rational if in good times we paid off debts and in bad times we borrowed and spent. We don't. We accumulate debts when confident about our personal finances, and cut back when we are worried. In doing so we all play a personal role in contributing to boom and bust. And hectoring, or tinkering, won't change that one jot.
How many times have you heard friends say: "We won't be spending so much on Christmas this year." Such decisions, replicated millions of times, will leave retailers in disarray. And sensible consumers, knowing the pain retailers are in, will wait until January before spending.
It's the same with mortgages. Lucky ones on tracker deals will see cuts in monthly payments - £100, Darling said yesterday. But will households spend or pay down debt instead? The latter is more likely. After all, households will need to cover national insurance rises now pencilled in for 2011.
Only those with no savings at all, whose meagre income or tax credits barely cover their minimum living costs, will carry out their patriotic duty and spend the lot. We used to think bankers were masters of the universe. Now its low-income shoppers we are relying on.
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