James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » The roller-coaster ride that was the first decade of the twenty-first century has brought Teesside and the rest of Britain down to earth with an almighty bump.
First there was the dot.com busted flush that saw entrepreneurs make - then lose - millions overnight. Next came the construction boom and bust, where houses, hotels and offices were built on the rocky foundations of sky-high debt that ultimately couldn't be repaid.
And finally, the Northern Rock meltdown and subsequent implosion of financial systems around the world have left many questioning whether life will ever be the same again.
It shouldn't be, if lessons of the last ten years have been learned.
The harsh reality is that businesses and individuals cannot afford to shell out money at the rate they did during the crazy credit boom of 2003-2007.
Once the recession kicked in, sky-high borrowing resulted in highly leveraged companies going out of business and individuals losing their homes.
The credit card - a flexible friend during those golden years - is now a millstone around the necks of people struggling to keep up with interest repayments.
It's also darkly symbolic of a fundamental problem at the heart of a British economy overly reliant on tigerish consumerism.
Manufacturing accounts for just 11% of Britain's GDP and although that figure is higher in the North-east at 19%, it's still not enough to compete with exporting powerhouses such as China.
In short, we need to make more and consume less.
The last two years have illustrated how dangerous it is for the country to rely so heavily on financial services for economic growth.
Now is the time to focus on high-value, niche products that cannot be mass-produced anywhere else. We cannot compete yet with China and India on price, but we can on quality.
During the last decade, the axis of economic power has shifted inexorably from west to east, with America and Europe lapping up cheap imports mass-produced in Asia.
The onus is on Britain to stem this worrying trend by making best use of manufacturing skills clearly prevalent in regions such as Teesside.
Although 1,700 workers are set to lose their jobs if the Corus steelmaking plant in Redcar is mothballed, their talents will still be needed as Teesside positions itself at the forefront of the global high-tech manufacturing revolution.
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