Just when you think the credit crunch may be past the worse, along comes another bank, or two, or three, going bust and the financial system is thrown yet again into crisis. And as each crisis hits, governments rush in with our billions, to keep the whole financial sector from collapse.

So much for all that crap preached for years about the need for market discipline under which uneconomic companies are allowed to go to the wall. It would seem that the iron laws of the free market only apply to coal mines. The banks are allowed to play by another set of free market rules, in which the well connected are allowed to make billions from corrupt deals, then when it all starts to fall apart, we pay the price with rising unemployment, falling living standards and repossessions. In the words of the old song, it’s the rich who get the pleasure and the poor who get the blame.