“How long” demands an irate observer of the financial markets “will it be necessary to pay City men so entirely out of proportion to what other servants of society commonly receive for performing social services not less useful or difficult?” And then again, this time on the role of traders in financial markets: “It is much better that gambling should be associated with matters of no great significance rather than be bound up with the industry and trade of the country”.

If you wanted proof there was no better analyst of the way financial markets in extremis behave, or that the current global financial crisis is nothing new (except in its scale), these two quotations from John Maynard Keynes provide a convincing answer. The first comes from his book, Indian Currency and Finance, published in 1913, and the second from his appearance before the Royal Commission on Lotteries and Betting in December 1932.