Booking a trip to Fantasy Gulch

Now that we have bailed them out to the tune of a trillion-odd pounds/euros/dollars, surprise surprise, the banks are returning to profit. Meanwhile, the various government institutions who are supposed to be deciding how to avoid another train wreck are stumbling around trying to grasp what really needs to be done, but are so thoroughly tarred with the same brush as the financial sector that they cannot even conceive of what is required.

And every time governments make a move, another little patronising missive comes from entirely non-credible banking body bemoaning how any new regulation on capitalisation or bonuses will only hamstring the system – as though the last couple of years were not warning enough that what ‘the system’ needs is not just hamstringing but evolution into a completely new kind of animal.

How long can it be before the banks start issuing press releases claiming that the current crisis is just a flash in the pan and that everything is really all right? I give it until the end of June at the latest.