Rogers in his inflamatory (can i sell a book?) fashion gets several things wrong as he hypes the UK imminent default and collapse. He does not seem to understand that the size of UK banking sector assets is NOT a sovereign (or quasi-sovereign) liability. As a global financial centre (unlike Switzerland or Iceland) a large proportion of assets in the banking sector are the libability of non UK Banks. This makes his often quoted comparison to Iceland totally misplaced. In addition he seems never to look at the NET position, simply the most dramatic and ambulance chasing number he can find.

Rogers called for an ongoing bull market in commodities as the value of his commity index fund and the CRB imploded.

I think his critique of UK finances has as much credibility as his unending fantasies around commodities going up forever.

Please, please, please read some Austrian economics, I’m begging you. If you are already familiar with the Austrians, please read them again. It would make your questions so much more uncomfortable for people to answer. I’m not referring to this interview particularly, but your interview last night with Mervyn King was in desperate need of some non-Keynesian perspective. Oh how he would have squirmed! Same goes for Mr Snow in his interviews.

The answer isn’t easy – but it is clear that the way our government is handling the situation is doomed to fail each time.

I wonder how many times they will try the same answer before realising it is the wrong one?