When Moses went up to Mt Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, he left his brother Aaron in charge of the children of Israel. While Moses was away, the people panicked and lost their faith. They collected all their jewelry, melted it down and created a golden calf to pray to.

When Moses returned he found them dancing about the calf and doing a lot of unsavory but titillating pagan stuff. He got very angry. God realized that these people, still slaves at heart, would never have the courage to be free men. He needed a new generation to enter the promised land. So the Israelites were obliged to wander the desert for forty years, waiting for the old guys to die off, and for a new unscarred generation to grow up.

I fear we’re going to have to wait a comparable amount of time for a generation of bankers to get over their trauma and a generation of consumers to regain their confidence.