Ysterday the rating agency Moody's put the UK economy under "negative watch", which means that there is nearly a one in three chance we will lose our top AAA credit rating with investors.
The reason for the downgrade was simply because the prospects for British growth look so truly awful that people are worried whether we will be able to pay our bills.
Surprisingly, the Chancellor said that this showed that his economic strategy is working.
It's like a dodgy doctor telling you to keep on taking the same medicine even though you keep getting sicker.
Sooner or later, it's time to get a second opinion and consider changing your treatment.
Britain's economy shrank in the last three months of 2011. Another quarter like that and we are officially in a double dip recession.
This is why almost 2.7million people are now out of work – the highest jobless number for 17 years.
And about a million of these are young people, scarred before their working life has properly begun.
This surely isn't the right time to continue with deep and swingeing spending cuts.
Cutting aggressively in a downturn is a sure way to get the patient to bleed to death.
By keeping more and more out of work, we sacrifice our potential as their skills and motivation rot.
But Britain has a growth problem beyond the short-term austerity debate.
We have limited influence on what happens to the eurozone or the US deficit, but we can influence things closer to home.
Wake up and smell the ratings, Mr Osborne, and go for growth.
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