It is now nearly two years since the first gusts of the financial crisis knocked down two ramshackle hedge funds run by Bear Stearns in New York, and then roared on around the world to expose shallow-rooted financial institutions, products, policies, reputations and beliefs, from alt-A mortgages to the Zeitgeist itself. Well before the crisis broke, many of the threats to stability which turned out to be so dangerous were, in isolation, clearly understood and much discussed. World growth was