Today's historians and certainly those to come are going to be sucking their pencils for years pondering over what the impact of 9/11 was. The tremors certainly have n't settled and like the mainland of Japan after this year's tsunami, the ground has shifted irreversibly, direction unknown.

Did the debt crisis precede that terrible day all those Septembers ago, or was it longer in the womb? Again, a point to be contested with answers either side of that date.

But let's say it did get tailwind. What did that force us to recognise? This: that bankers sanctify profit as private, but their debt, on the other hand, has to be borne by everyone. Privatised profit, nationalised debt.

A US friend sent me this apercu that sums it all up at least if you are American. It's delightful, almost haiku like in it's awful clarity.

It's also about grasping acquisitiveness, shamelessness, hood winking, scaremongering; capabilities that have transcended geography, as palpable in the UK as they are in the US, monstering both countries, and laying waste to the Euro zone.

'A unionized public employee, a tea party republican, and a Wall Street Banker are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The Wall Street Banker reaches across and takes 11 cookies, looks at the tea partier and says, 'Watch out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie.'