When the global worldwide banking system went into meltdown in 2007-8, the short-term response – the appropriate one – was to use public money to prevent a sequence of collapses of financial institutions. But the right long-term response is not to try to stop future bank failures, but to construct a global financial and economic system that is robust to individual bank failures. That is a fundamentally different objective.

It has proved difficult to find executives and management systems able to control the risk exposures of large financial conglomerates: even the halo above Jamie Dimon looks tarnished. To believe that the control these managers failed to establish will be achieved by the supervisory efforts of junior officials in public agencies is a delusion. Even if regulators had the technical competence, they do not have the political backing. Hotlines from bank boardrooms to ministerial offices are answered as promptly as ever.

Public opinion excoriates regulators for their ineffectiveness as it nurtures exaggerated expectations of what future regulation might achieve. Establishing bodies with grand-sounding responsibilities for global financial stability represents only a tiny step towards these goals.