Further to our last, it says something about the politicians of the G-20 that they did not agree a single measure to help business directly – despite their nominal agreement with the obvious truth that a revival of business confidence is the only way out of the recession.

On the contrary, this is an early warning to prepare for the negative effects of at least two of the measures that were agreed.

First, “better regulation” is supposed to be aimed at the big banks, but experience tells us that bureaucrats always use such appeals to populism as pretexts to impose what they have long wanted to do to the rest of us. Indeed, the history of regulation is that its intended targets usually escape, and the soft targets of small businesses and individuals end up as the victims.

Second, the recession is in no part due to “tax havens”, but, once again, the bureaucrats have a pretext to do what they like to do: control. By making capital less mobile, they will have less fear of the economic consequences of raising domestic taxes.

So, while we can be certain that the seriously wealthy will still be able to move their money around, those at lower levels will find it harder – and so will end up paying higher taxes.

Get ready – the really hard times have yet to begin.