The Observor's editorial today would be a perfect brief summary of the British economic situation, were it not for the existence of imperialism. In fact, financialisation of the British economy was a brilliant imperialist strategy. Advanced industrial economies like Germany or Japan have a different imperialist strategy. Britain exists on imperialist rents; Japan and Germany exist by unequal exchange. The premise of this article is that Germany and Japan exist by dint of the strength of a 'real' economy, but this is only partly true. The real economy that supports either Britain or Germany is that of the Third World.