It's 10 years ago this week. There, on the cover of Time magazine, looking more self-satisfied than ever, stood the three men who would ostensibly save the world economy from the Asian Crisis: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and his deputy Larry Summers. The committee to save the world.
Prophetic warnings
Where are the superheroes now?
Alan Greenspan is now widely derided for having created the bubble that has since burst, plunging the world into an even graver financial crisis.
Robert Rubin, who left the Clinton administration and returned to Wall Street, is broadly criticised for his aggressive pursuit of speculative plays while he ran Citibank. The company's stock lost 95 per cent of its worth in the current market meltdown, and Rubin was forced to leave. Some committee.
At the time of the Asian crisis, the Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote a blistering critique which argued that what the men really did was to take advantage of the temporary weakness of the world's governments to advance the interests of Wall Street banks. It was all going to come crashing down one day, he warned.
Prophetic though Stiglitz was, those were boom days. President Clinton was bellowing that his administration had created a new paradigm of endless growth and prosperity. Journalists were celebrating Greenspan as 'the maestro'. Rubin could do no wrong.
What a difference a decade makes. But lest anyone think we learned our lessons - wait for it - they're baaa-aaack.
And they're doing it again. Except this time they can't conceal the naked fact: they're not out to save the world, they're desperately trying to save Wall Street, making the American taxpayer foot the bill for the huge errors the banks made.
Larry Summers has been resurrected as President Barack Obama's chief economic advisor.
Obama's treasury secretary is former Fed governor Tim Geithner, who, in turn, comes from the New York Fed. If two men were tighter with Wall Street than these two, well, they've probably already jumped off skyscrapers.
The US, as we all know, is in the midst of a financial crisis. The US financial crisis, as we also know, is dragging the world economy down with it. And financial crises, as all economists know, are fairly straightforward affairs.
A massive loss of trust leads to a situation in which the government needs to step in to restore confidence to markets.
This isn't rocket science. The textbook on banking crises has been written, and both Geithner and Summers have studied it at length.
When banks have lost the trust of the public, the government must step in and take over those on the verge of bankruptcy, wipe out their shareholders, fire their boards, and clean up their balance sheets. They then sell them back to the public. America needs a FINSAC.
Postponing nationalisation
But they won't do it. They're postponing nationalisation, and instead concocting opaque bailout schemes.
And they're doing it, reportedly, because Larry's and Tim's friends on Wall Street are urging them to let them keep their jobs.
Investors have registered their disdain. Stock markets are plunging further than ever. It may be the best thing to happen. Until the Government does the right thing, investors will treat the banks like toxic assets.
To forestall complete collapse, the Obama administration will have to step in and take the bitter medicine. One can only hope that he sees this sooner rather than later.
Forget symbolic (and apparently unenforceable) pay caps. If a bank is well-run, let it pay its people what it wants. But for the rest, let the buffoons who created this mess join bread lines.
John Rapley is president of the Caribbean Policy Research Institute, an independent think tank affiliated to the UWI, Mona. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.