The thing that always gets me above any other of their myriad personality quirks is the way bankers and their so-called governing bodies assume that everyone outside their profession has the brain of an ant, and the discernment of one who votes SWP regularly. Although it slipped through largely unnoticed in the end last month, the Basle III Committee eventually gave in and lowered the bar so that all the key-member banks can qualify as safe.

The Slog reported extensively before that entirely predictable event: about the frantic lobbying that went on – especially by the Franco-German banks – to lower the capital reserve requirements, and about the near-panic that set in when it looked like the Basle mob might get uppity about it. But nobody says no to banks – at least, not for long.

Anyway, today Barcap reports what a big win the changes to the Basel proposals are. The top 30 or so US banks between them will need to stick another $115 billion into their capital reserves – that’s a full $110 billion less than it would’ve been under the previous ‘rules’. And spookily, the top 16 European banks are also being let off €100 billion – or a whole one third less than they had to scrape up just nine weeks ago. This must be a sign that things are getting better.

Digging behind the scenes a bit, it transpires that these lucky lenders will also be allowed to plonk tax credits and mortgage servicing agreements into their capital calculations – even if they don’t put them there in reality or they turn into defaults – respectively- as the case may be.

It’s a joke. ‘Banking reform’: remember how at the peak of 2008’s radicalism, no bank would ever be allowed any leeway ever again, and they’d all be broken up, and stop shuffling silly paper around and be forced to lend to small businesses? The fact that this latest, brazen stitch-up will be irrelevant within at most months is scarce satisfaction for the likes of us: banks may fall, but banking will go on and on until all the money everywhere has gone. And then a new method of financing business and property ownership will begin, called…I don’t know, a Money Shop or a Lending Area or a Financial Space or something equally fatuous.

But the truly terrifying part is that some banks remain panicky even on the basis of the new rules.