But let's run a bit further with the metaphor about the parallels between sportsmen and bankers. Imagine the current crop of "star bankers" were transformed into a team of professional athletes. We need enough to make up a football team - so 11 stars from Northern Rock, HBOS, RBS and a few American ringers from Lehman Brothers. We should kit them out properly - a sharp pinstripe, a bit like the New York Yankees, always looks good. In this moral metaphor, how should we evaluate the recent performance of this team of banker-footballers? How would the stars be treated by supporters on the freezing terraces?

The banking-football XI would certainly play an unusual formation: no defenders but 11 strikers. In fact, given the huge incentives for personal high achievement, all 11 would be camped in the few feet immediately around the opposition goal-area, looking for the chance to net a really big bonus.

Alongside the goal bonuses, the banking-football team would use what economists call a "tournament theory" of remuneration, in which each player's salary depends on his ranking order within the team. Hence much of the team's energy would be devoted not towards defeating the opposition, but instead elbowing their own teammates out the way. As the Financial Times's Tim Harford put it, "Once you start handing out large quantities of cash to people for outperforming their peers, they will work out there are two ways to win this game: either do a great job, or make sure your colleagues do a bad one."