Growing concern

THE warning from the Central Bank that we are returning to the habits and excesses that undid us — if that is dramatic enough a description — almost a decade ago, must give us pause for thought. 

That the warning comes at the very moment difficulties at Deutsche Bank sent European markets into a tailspin yesterday and left world stocks sliding toward their worst week in three months, just adds to that concern.

Democratic politicians and their handmaiden economists have struggled for more than a century to break the boom-bust cycle, a cycle made all the more precarious by globalisation and the emergence of new economic powerhouses.

The €12bn fine imposed on Deutsche Bank by US authorities is on a par with the tax bill facing Apple and is another indication of how uncontrolled corporations can imagine themselves beyond the rules that define safe business practice. Europe, no more than the rest of the world, cannot afford a second banking crisis in a decade. National and transnational authorities must be utterly ruthless in doing all they can to prevent one.