The cost of living as measured by the Consumer Price Index - a crude approximation but the most easily available - is now back where it was in early 2007. It needs to go further back than this if the economy's competitiveness is to be restored. But as argued in "Back from the Brink" the private sector has - together with ECB rate cuts - done all the heavy lifting in this process. As ECB rate cuts become a thing of the past, more sheltered sectors of the economy must now take over the work of driving down the cost of living.