In coming up with solutions that address the immediate crisis but fail to tackle dangerous systemic issues, the Group of 20’s emerging ideas on the banking industry bear a striking resemblance to the Americans’ response to the dotcom crash of 2001-02. Back then, the burst bubble exposed biased research and stock price manipulation on Wall Street and dubious accounting practices in US companies. Out came a new set of rules cleaning up the links between research analysts and investment bankers and laying a heavy hand on corporate chief executives.

These measures extinguished the fire but neglected more fundamental problems. By the time the regulations were in place, the investment banks and elements of the corporate sector were already deeply involved in new and even more dangerous practices. We speak, of course, of the derivatives-based leverage of banks’ balance sheets that brought down a range of previously sound institutions, dragged the global economy into recession and ripped up accepted economic theories.