It should require surpluses in good years, and permit far larger deficits in bad years, and I like Frank's idea below of 5 year rolling averages as well.

All coupled with a required degree of progressive taxation to make it all possible, without which public deficits must never happen, as a punitive measure for the free riders like the UK and increasingly the rest of us.

But if you're not going to talk about any of the other relevant matters, fiscal, tax and capital allocation, and just have a silly one-size fits all straight-jacket, eg where we still are now, best scrap it all.

Prodi was right on this one.

I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from them Eugene Debs