We got into this mess through financial engineering and manipulation for individual profit. Maybe it's time we considered some more manipulation, this time for the benefit of everyone and not a greedy few.

After months of denials and prevarications, the Spanish government has finally done what many economists have been predicted it would have to do for months, and asked for a 100 billion-euro bailout for its sieve-like and utterly corrupt banking system.

The endless eurozone crisis provokes a despairing weariness. The G8 has come and gone in Camp David, bringing, so it seems, a solution no nearer. Yet another EU summit will gather later this week. No-one is holding their breath that something fresh and decisive will emerge to halt the ever-mestasising threat of sovereign default. Yet, something has recently changed. To weariness, now add raw alarm. Over the years, European politicians have repeatedly cried wolf, invoking deadlines for a final solution to the euro-crisis that they have then declined to honour. Now, the new deadline is the Greek general election on 17 June. David Cameron has even labelled it a referendum on membership of the eurozone.