The only way to have a healthy economy long term is to:

1) Eliminate government debt; the higher your debt level is the more money you're forced to spend paying back that debt and the higher your taxes will be (with no benefit for the tax payer)

2) Outlaw Deficit financing

3) Maintain as low of taxes while only providing services the government can deliver efficiently.

4) Allow large firms that took high risks to fail, and (therefore) allow the smaller firms who didn't take those risks to thrive in their place

5) Produce lightweight regulation and oversight to prevent truely dangerous activity while still allowing firms to take risks

In other words, do the complete opposite of what the US government is doing.

better regulation
progresive taxation
close tax loopholes
cut pointless expenditure (trident, nuclear energy, oppressive social policys)
legalise drugs (more tax income for the treasurey is the economic benefit)
invest in green energy (nucler is too dangerous and from what ive seen on tv, not viable anyway in the uk)

1. I agree, but how? I would say stop spending money we don't have. Cut 50% of all spending in government.

2. Sorry, but that's not logical. You say the economy is not going to recover because of rising oil prices, so your solution is to use energy that cost 20-30 times more. 

This.

You should run for office. I would vote for you.

1- I was thinking about all kinds of debt, not just government debt. Default on the debt which doesn't have a chance to get paid and keep the rest (in other words, stop bailing out debtors).

2- I'm talking about medium/long term sustainability. The free market isn't efficient enough at getting rid of oil dependence quickly enough to mitigate the problems of peak oil. Have you read about the Hirsch Report? According to most projections (even those from optimistic sources), we're already too late to stave off the negative consequences of not dealing with this problem.

Can I vote for you? In Britain too please?

You can't, because someone with such policies would never be allowed to come within spitting distance of power... The banking and other lobbies are too powerful for that to happen (unless there's some sort of huge revolution in the Western world).

Joke answer: Give the economy Lemisip, Lemsip fixes all problems.

Real answer: Do F*ck all with private businesses, don't interfere and don't allow failing businesses to be bailed out. The only good idea I can think of would be to offer small incentives to those failing businesses to turn their fortunes as opposed to handing out tonnes of cash.

Also, stop weakening the currency by just producing money out of nothing. Damn it Brown.

Oh and poor people are poor because they have no money. Quite possibly the most simple lesson we can learn from this. Hopefully the banks have learned their lesson.

That said, in times like this I feel a more 'social*' manner of spending money is needed. Government pays for more jobs in the short term, build roads and construct buildings, etc... Then when the economy has recovered and work starts to pick up again then let them go back to normal jobs for private companies.

But I'm just a regular schlo-mo, my ideas would likely fail lol.

* Most accurate work I can think of.

Oh and legalise Prostitution and marijuana. Instantly take two problematic, illegal industries and turn them into something safe and profitable. Win-Win

problem is, in the UK the problem was that the government DIDNT regulate or "interfere" with the financial sector, we let them do whatever they wanted really, we let the take big risks for our cash and when they lost that cash, the government had to intervene to protect savers in thoose banks.

currency wise, i say we join the Euro, safety in numbers, afterall, were allways being told how were worse off than the rest of the EU, why not join them?

the easy access to credit and loans is a problem, we should have told them that and stopped them (if neccessary) imo. that said, if someone needs a loan in order to pay rent or something, i think the government should do something to help, wether this is through a "emergency fund" or through a "nationalised bank" i dont mind.

poor people are poor for any number of reasons, i dont think thats any reason for us to write them off though, i think we need to make sure we have good, green, reliable public services, so thoose who cant afford private healthcare and what not (most people cant, btw) have a viable alternative.

imo, the government should invest in Green power and Green technology and encourage (through taxation if neccesary) the private sector to do the same. creating jobs would be done if the green power and technology is part of the public or private sector or both.

obviosly, these measures need to be paid for, i suggest a more proggressive taxation system and the closing of tax loopholes, this would be for all taxes, income, inheritance, etc.

we also need to cut non-essentail expenses short term, things like the nucler deterent (if were gonna have one, id rather it was controlled and mainted by the EU and that any use of them in any EU nation was only allowed via a vote in the EU parliment), we should reconsider what are military aims are aswell, we should adopt a policy of only getting involved in defensive wars, otherwise we should remain neutral (i think Ireland do this) which will save money, as no Iraq or Afghanistan, we should also legalise then tax less dangerous drugs and prostitution.

this is what i think we should do, so you dont have to agree, but if you do, thats great.