Until this week closing a deal had never been a problem for Hank Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs chief executive turned US Treasury secretary. But in his effort to compel a stunned Congress to give him blanket authority to use $700bn (£380bn, €480bn) in taxpayers’ money to rescue Wall Street and the US economy, he turned to desperate measures, self-mockingly going on bended knee and genuflecting before Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, who in turn joked: “I didn’t know you were Catholic.” (Paulson is not, in fact. He is a devout, teetotalling Christian Scientist.)