We have had wars on want, on drugs, on terror. How about a war on greed? That seems to capture the spirit of the rhetoric coming from both sides of the Atlantic, where the prevailing political fashion is to condemn the “spivs and speculators” of high finance. There are, of course, clear flaws in the backlash against pay on Wall Street and the City of London.

First, payouts can be the hallmark of success. Sure, it seems grotesque that bosses at defunct Bear Stearns, for example, were raking it in while pursuing reckless business strategies. But why should the employees of Goldman Sachs, who have coped well with the credit crunch, also suffer? Second, paying people less is hardly a guarantee of stability. There is wealth destruction in the public sector, after all, where nobody gets to be a really fat cat. Third, no matter what hare-brained ideas politicians come up with to curb controversial pay packets, bright minds in finance will find a way round them or exit the regulated part of the industry.