Last week’s dizzying rush of events and economic and market data threw up one number which can serve as your Rosetta Stone for understanding what impact the global financial crisis will have on American society: $2,000bn (€1,500bn, £1,200bn). That is the amount Americans have lost from defined-contribution 401(k) pensions over the past 15 months. Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, cited the figure in public testimony last Tuesday, so today the vanished retirement savings will be even greater.

The hit to the 401(k)s – nearly triple the amount Hank Paulson asked for to rescue Wall Street and more than double the cost of the war in Iraq – most directly connects what had been a crisis of financial institutions and esoteric financial instruments with the lives, and old-age security, of millions of middle-class Americans.