YOU CAN tell the victims of tracker mania. I know. I'm one of them. The symptoms manifest themselves early each month: on the dot of noon.

Sufferers gather round a screen or radio in silence then pump the air with their fists shrieking, "I love you Mervyn King." A primitive urge sends them jabbing at the keys of a calculator while clutching their last mortgage statement. It is not an edifying site.

The other financial affliction in this strange new world we live in is fixed rate anxiety syndrome. Its victims twitch uncontrollably at the mention of the Bank of England. They wander around in a depressed trance groaning repeatedly: "Five years at 5.99 per cent. Why....why?"

Not since interest rates briefly and surreally hit 15 per cent on Black Wednesday in September 1992 have interest rates loomed so large in our lives.

Those who grabbed the last of the discount trackers in the summer of 2007 are now basking in the glow of the lowest mortgage rates they or any other borrower has ever known, in some cases, remarkably, just 0.99 per cent.

But will it work? Will the hundreds of millions of pounds of extra spending power unleashed each month by the Bank of England's increasingly desperate throws of the dice make a jot of difference. There are certainly no shortage of enticements to spend. They may have moaned about it but retailers are pushing the VAT cut for all they are worth. In the Nando's Chicken Restaurant I was lucky enough to visit this week with my children they are calling it Very Attractive Transaction. It will probably take more than that to get me back but I take the point.

Bosses at John Lewis say they have seen a dramatic surge in sales of big ticket items on which the 2.5 per cent cut actually adds up to something worth having.

The sales on the High Street are extraordinary. The old rules of retailing which said you did not start discounting until Boxing Day have been thoroughly trashed. Stores are certainly busy on their discount days. But many are fighting for survival. The money they can persuade shoppers to part in December may mean the difference between a mere loss and full scale administration in the New Year.

Of course shoppers will spend at Christmas, even the benighted fixed rate fall guys. But wait until January.

The problem is that the more money is thrown at consumers the more they want to squirrel it away. They are scared. The combined value of Britain's residential property was estimated at £5.8 trillion at the start of the summer. It is not unreasonable to assume that this has fallen by close to £1 trillion since then.

The nation may not yet be in negative equity - Britain's collective personal borrowing stands at around £1.5 trillion - but its Loan to Value ratio is plummeting. Just as soaring property prices encouraged consumers to borrow, spend, and borrow again for a decade, so the loss of £1 trillion of personal wealth in six astonishing months has triggered a drastic reappraisal of priorities. Even people in relatively safe jobs who are better off because their mortgage rate has gone down are, as it were, dumping Waitrose for Morrison.

The monthly tracker mania "high" does not last long. The extra money might be welcome on paper. But for many of us it is cash we dare not spend.