I am now back on Terra Firma and have been greeted with beautiful Spring weather. Among the headlines I read when I returned to my office today were those predicting that the Greek economy will have shrunk by 25 per cent by 2013 and the Troika are demanding more cuts. What I learned from being in the lands of austerity over the last few weeks is that there is no coherent plan to salvage economic growth. Rather, the same economic policies that caused the crisis remain dominant. In saying that, I discount the trends in monetary policy including quantitative easing, which are crisis-specific, because they really don’t make much difference. What is apparent is that one of the pillars of social stability is now under threat. I refer to the deteriorating position of the middle class in the advanced nations. The latest data from the US supports the view that the inequality in income distributions continues to worsen. There is a hollowing out of the middle class continuing at a pace. This rising inequality demonstrates we haven’t learned much and are continuing to repeat the errors in policy that created the crisis and is preventing nations from leaving it behind.