The first example I will give you is that of a man who, having a large income, gives an allowance to his son living somewhere abroad. Supposing a man in England has £10,000 a year, and he has put his son into business in Paris, but because the young man has not yet learned his business, and is still being helped from home, he allows that son £1,000 a year to spend. When the Income Tax people go round finding out what everybody has they put down the rich man in England, quite rightly, as having £10,000 a year, and when the value of all incomes in England is _assessed_, _i.e._, when a table is drawn up showing what the total income of all Englishmen is, this man appears, quite properly, as having £10,000 a year. But when the people in France make a similar _assessment_, to find out what the incomes are of all the people living in France, the rich man’s son in Paris appears as having £1,000 a year. So when the assessments of England and France are added together and some Government economist is calculating what the total income of the citizens of both countries may be, _that £1,000 a year appears twice_. One of these appearances is an _economic imaginary_. In other words, by the method of calculation used, £1,000 every year appears on the total assessment of England and also of France, making £2,000 of £1,000. The extra £1,000, though appearing on paper, does not really exist at all: it is an “Economic Imaginary.” This is the simplest case of an economic imaginary. It is the case overlap, or counting of the same money twice, and we may put down this case in general terms by saying: “Every unchecked overlap creates an economic imaginary to the extent of that unchecked overlap.” It looks so simple that one might say, “Well, surely everybody would notice that!” But it is very much the other way--even in this simple case. The more complicated society becomes, the more payments there are back and forth, allowances and pensions and all sorts of arrangements which grow up with increased travel and means of communication and, in general, with the development of society, the more these overlaps come into being and remain unchecked, that is, uncorrected, the greater number there are in which people are not aware that there is an overlap, or if it is an overlap do not remember to mention it, or if they do mention it are not believed. In general the more society increases in complexity the more this kind of economic imaginary by mere overlap increases in proportion to the total real wealth, and the more the total “assessment” of the community is exaggerated.