Hypocrisy caused banking crisis

Houses of cards, chickens coming home to roost - pick your clich.

The new low in the financial crisis, which has prompted comparisons with the 1929 Wall Street crash, is the fruit of a pattern of dishonesty on the part of financial institutions and incompetence on the part of policymakers.

We had become accustomed to the hypocrisy. The banks reject any suggestion they should face regulation and rebuff any move toward anti-trust measures, but when trouble strikes, all of a sudden, they demand state intervention. They must be bailed out; they are too big, too important to be allowed to fail.