Praying for salvation

It might seem like financiers have behaved like skinflints, doing a runner instead of paying for a slap-up dinner in a classy restaurant. But the owner has found the solution: make all the other diners pay for it. The trouble is that almost all of us dine in the same eatery Emil GóreckiThe world has gone topsy-turvy, for here you have a situation in which the central bank in the world’s most liberal country pumps USD 700 bln into the economy to save the financial system from collapsing; a system that has lost stability almost entirely because of the utterly reckless behaviour of its bankers. European Union countries, too, are to be allowed to relax the restrictions on granting public assistance to banks and so have had to raise the ceilings of their budget deficits. In contrast to the US government, which let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt, the EU refuses to allow any bank to collapse. The plan to save the Old World’s finances will cost a combined sum of EUR 1.8 tln, made up