When is a bail-out not quite a bail-out? When it occurs in a US election year, it might seem. Or that, at least, is the cynical thinking floating around some well-informed market minds.

For as the credit crunch grinds on, pressures in the financial system are rising by the day. Never mind the fact that hedge funds are now imploding; in a sense that is only to be expected (and arguably overdue).

Instead, what is really worrying investors, ahead of the release of broker results next week, is the risk that serious capital pressures will emerge at some banks if they are forced to mark their books to (ever falling) market prices. There is also growing concern about the capital position of housing behemoths, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as mortgage defaults rise.

Thus the trillion-dollar question haunting the markets is where on earth will the capital to plug these potential gaps come from? Will private sector investors (such as sovereign wealth funds) step to the plate again? Or will the next chapter in this saga entail the US taxpayers footing the bill, through covert or overt means?

Unsurprisingly, this latter scenario is not something that anybody in Washington is keen to debate in public right now. And the Federal Reserve, for its part, is working overtime to avoid this worst-case scenario by devising ever-more creative measures to tackle pockets of market illiquidity.

But while this week’s $200bn Fed package should earn points for lateral thinking, the Fed now seems to be running to keep still: as soon as it announces one set of confidence-boosting measures, a fresh set of market brushfires break out.

Even if the Fed’s measures ease liquidity pressures, they cannot by themselves solve the most fundamental source of capital pressures on banks. After all, the banks’ woes do not entirely stem from mark-to-market accounting practices; behind the drama of tumbling securities prices there are tangible credit losses.

And whether you think these credit losses will eventually total $300bn or four times that level (which is roughly the range of current forecasts), what is clear is that losses will exceed the $60bn to $100bn of capital injections so far garnered from sovereign wealth funds. It is also clear that these funds have growing qualms about writing new blank cheques. Hence the rising question about how to plug the capital gap.

So will the US government step in instead? Not in a classic sense anytime soon, I suspect. After all, no politician in his (or her) right mind wants to be seen rescuing greedy Wall Street bankers right now – or not unless it is presented as a collective action plan in which plenty of bankers go to jail.

But producing a coordinated deal between multiple stake holders looks hard right now, particularly given the US election. Thus the US faces the reverse of Japan’s problem a decade ago: where Japan was hobbled by an excess of collectivism, the US is now hobbled by extreme individualism. Forging proactive plans requiring shared pain and sacrifice is not something that comes easily in America now.

Of course, this situation might change if a full-blown financial fiasco erupts. Further ahead, the next administration may find it easier to take radical steps by blaming the problems on the past.

But in the meantime, I expect to see the intensified use of more subtle forms of public support, via ill-understood institutions such as the Federal Home Loan banking system or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. There could soon be more measures to help subprime borrowers to stay in their houses (which helps the banks by reducing future mortgage defaults).

Perhaps these subtle approaches will quell the crisis or even turn sentiment sufficiently to enable the banks to attract more capital from private sources. But the longer the turmoil lasts, the greater the risk that sooner or later, taxpayer money will end up propping up the system. The only uncertainty is just how many euphemisms will be invented in the coming months by whizz-kids in Wall Street or Washington who want to avoid saying “bail-out” in an election year.