I, like many, have watched the city high-rollers cartwheeling over each other to new levels of extravagance in recent years. Bumper bonuses have been paid to 350,000 financial whiz kids, and we have watched London house prices increase 20% and “indifferent” modern art go up 10 times. Us old-fashioned types have been scandalized by this decadence and have felt the time has come for a correction. The trouble is, we ordinary investors who haven’t been in on the “let the good times roll” are bearing the brunt of the economic downturn as our shares scrape along the bottom. If you’re moderately well off, you can’t even afford to go out to dinner at London prices today.

The fat years for bankers, hedge fund managers, and financiers may now be coming to an end, but they never actually began for the rest of us. Our sons and daughters who aren’t in the money markets can’t afford the property ladder or the ordinary pleasures thanks to the cost of living inflated by the super rich.

Could it be that fear will replace greed as the main motivator for traders and investors? And when will the “rest of us” be able to enjoy a comfortable standard of living again?