These are exceptional times. Exceptional for what has happened to financial markets and for what has not happened, at least not yet, to the broader economy – the onset of a severe recession. Perhaps it was the absence of the latter that lulled too many into viewing the bursting of the housing bubble merely as a correction, the defaults in US subprime mortgages just as misfortune and the failure of important financial institutions as collateral damage.

Six months ago, when the International Monetary Fund estimated more than $1,000bn (€691bn, £546bn) in financial sector losses and predicted a sharp slowdown in the global economy, we were criticised for being too pessimistic. But with much of the losses yet to be realised, and with the financial crisis now acute, it has become clear that nothing short of a systemic solution – comprehensive in tackling the immediate fallout and comprehensive in addressing the root causes – will permit the broader economy, in the US and globally, to function with any semblance of normality.