We are nowhere near being out of the woods

So, we are back in the bond market, which must mean that the recession is over… three cheers … No? Really?

Well, one cheer for the NTMA anyhow, which did a solid job of tapping the existing bond base for additional money. What many commentators fail to realise is it’s a long time, back in the late 1970s, since we actually paid off debt.

National debt, which plugs the yawning gap between government income and expenditure, doesn’t get paid off any more but gets rolled over.