Indeed, in the good times even the clients are happy enough because share prices are rising. However, in the bad times, clients' wealth falls, questions are asked and the conflicts of interest come out into the open. The bank holding companies' managements are shown to have betrayed clients and misled their shareholders. That was why the Glass-Steagall Act was passed by Congress in 1933. It was designed to keep investment and commercial banking apart, and to prevent the abuses that led to the Great Crash.

But American financial organisations found that after the Big Bang - and to some extent before it - they could behave in London as they could not in New York. Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, at least partly so that the US could recapture financial business said to have been lost to the UK. Over the past decade, throughout the industrial world, large so-called "banking" groups have offered practically every imaginable financial service, regardless of conflicts of interest. The wider consequences, which include the dot.com mania, have been catastrophic. An international agreement is needed to break up bank holding companies, so that in 21^st-century capitalism the tasks of investment advice, securities trading and commercial banking are kept distinct. Investment markets must be better organised than Oriental bazaars.