“If you come to a fork in the road, take it,” advised legendary US baseball coach Yogi Berra. Unfortunately, the US and UK governments instead have sat idling in confusion about how to proceed with the financial crisis which gets deeper by the minute. This week both countries are expected to announce further plans aimed at bolstering bank balance sheets and spurring lending.

The reality, however, is that this incremental approach is stalling and that with every lurch, the US and UK are heading down the road marked “full nationalisation”. Last year, UK prime minister Gordon Brown was praised the world over for his plan to inject capital directly into banks rather than ridding them of toxic assets. In the US, the troubled asset relief programme was also diverted from its original mandate.