They were able to grow to sizes many times bigger than a country's GDP – the assumption being that the market would be self-regulating.
The cuts already announced are equivalent to 2.7% of GDP, and require heroic assumptions about the willingness of the private sector to make up that shortfall.
Based on Office for Budget Responsibility and ONS assumptions, though GDP per person is assumed to grow by 32% over the period, the living standards for low- and middle-income households are projected to stagnate with real disposable incomes growing by just 2%and9%9% respectively, it is also claimed.
Using the same assumptions for GDP growth, the think-tank expects it to take two years longer for the budget to move into surplus.But those economic assumptions now look too rosy as the credit squeeze takes hold and the housing market swoons.
My ingredients, however, are pure assumptions on GDP momentum, the price of oil, interest rates and inflation.
But since this data will not exist when the initial report on Q3 GDP is released, the assumptions made by government statisticians may distort the first estimate.
The ONS international comparisons only go up to 2012, a year in which the economy was treading water: 2013 has seen GDP recover and the assumption of many economists, including those at the Bank of England, is that firms will respond to rising demand by making their existing workers do more.
This has fallen slightly since then, but their report suggests that with NHS England projections of flat cash for the NHS, and reasonable assumptions around forecast GDP growth, we could see our spend on healthcare falling back to around 6% of GDP by 2021, equivalent of 2003's spending levels.
In 2015 the government predicts a deficit of 3.6% of GDP, even with its optimistic assumptions about oil prices.
This allows you to plug in your own assumptions about real GDP growth in China and America, inflation rates and the yuan's exchange rate against the dollar.
