Thanks Jason and for clarifying that these are your personal views. It would be great if more insiders expressed what they really thought and congratulations to your employer for allowing you to do this.

I fully agree that the problems go beyond one country and I fear that the smugness of some EU politicians will be tested this time when the real situation about EU financial houses comes to light.

But don't you think there is something of a "Made in an Anglo-Saxon Capitalism-Land" label on what we are seeing, even if its now being manifested in Europe too? And equally, haven't some countries done better at avoiding this syndrome, eg Canada, and also not rewarding the individuals who brought on the mess, eg Argentina and Iceland?

If so, I think my question of what explains the bailouts is worth struggling with. And I would like to add to my previous hypothesis.

Aside from the nexus of "legalised bribery" that we spoke about (I'm quoting that self-confessed "poster boy of globalisation", Tom Friedman http://bit.ly/siuwFG), there is also the matter of how exec pay has and continues to incentivise idiotic risk taking. Put bluntly, many of the execs at the core of the banking bailouts have done very well, as Lucian Bebchuk has shown (http://hvrd.me/6Zp74V). RBS is a UK example of the same phenomenon.

As David Cameron seems only recently to have to come to understand, these "wages for (catastrophic) failure" and the "crony capitalism" (to use the Prime Minister's words) threaten much that we value dearly in our market-based and democratic system. If the support for that evaporates, as seems to be happening, this will be an entirely "preventable surprise". Responsibility will rest with those who have the most power to change things today and investors are in that category.