The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is forecasting that British GDP will contract 2.8 percent this year, worse than the U.S., the eurozone and Japan.

The IMF expects the U.S. economy to contract 1.6 percent; Japan to shrink 2.6 percent and the eurozone to decline 2 percent. Overall, the IMF expects the global economy to expand 0.5 percent, its weakest showing since the Second World War.

Economists at the IMF also estimated that bank losses may reach $2.2 trillion, almost twice the $1.4 trillion the organization predicted in October.

It warned that, “unless stronger financial strains and uncertainties are forcefully addressed, the pernicious feedback loop between real activity and financial markets will intensify, leading to even more toxic effects on global growth.”

In Britain, the bank bail-out is already projected to take national debt to 8 percent of GDP, and today the Institute Fiscal Studies warned that national debt levels are unlikely to return to the pre-crisis levels for more than 20 years.

If you live in Britain, the part-nationalisation of the banking sector will cost you at least £8,000 ($12,000) in taxes.

£500 billion ($750bn) is a conservative estimate of what taxpayers are paying for Gordon Brown’s plan to bail out the UK banking system. The three-part package includes committing up to £50 billion of taxpayer funds for a part-nationalization of Lloyds TSB, HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is now 57 per cent owned by the government.

Furthermore, the Bank of England will pump at least £200 billion into the money markets to encourage banks to lend to each other again – which should help lower the costs of new mortgages.

The Government is also making a further £250 billion available for banks over the next three years to guarantee medium-term debt which is of dubious quality. This is intended to help restore confidence and get banks lending to each other again.

£500 billion is equivalent to 4,000 new hospitals, or 16 new high speed rail links between London, the north of England and Scotland.

This is the price we are paying for poor regulation of the banks by the governmment in the first place.