“The system has got used it,” said one fund manager earlier this week, after five banks had to be rescued by government intervention. “In my 30 years in the business, the standard mechanisms have always worked,” said another, a few days later, after the Dow Jones index suffered a record one-day fall.

But if you’re a saver, a borrower or a private investor, it probably doesn’t feel as if the system, or the market mechanism, has been working at all.