The financial crisis has killed off punterism - grassroots financial opportunism - in the UK as surely as leveraged investment banking. Its most recent incarnation was in a bovine stampede into buy-to-let property. Tens of thousands of landlords are now stumbling over a financial cliff. An effigy of a buy-to-let investor (circa 2007) will soon appear in the Wax Museum of Popular Capitalism alongside such other historical mugs as the share-dealing '80s cabbie and the dotbomb day trader of the 1990s.

Punterism is not in itself a bad thing. An alternative business dictionary might define it by its justifying cliché: "If you don't do yourself a bit of good, no one else will." At its best, punterism inspires shrewd individuals to tuck into free lunches that others disdain. Some pioneers become multi-millionaires. That triggers the related phenomenon of mug punterism, in which rash wannabes rush in after the original window of opportunity has closed. They come spectacularly unstuck pour encourager les autres .