Ten years after Lehman’s fall, how close is the next crash?

Our cinema is showing Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and I’m reminded of a remark attributed to Mark Twain, that ‘history doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes’. On 3 October 2008, three weeks after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, treasury secretary Hank Paulson’s $700 billion bailout for the US banking system was passed into law at the very hour when I was watching the original Mamma Mia! movie and observing the impact of a mass inoculation of feelgood on a crowd battered by frightening financial news.

And it was early the following Wednesday that I heard of chancellor Alistair Darling’s de facto nationalisation of RBS and Lloyds-HBOS and his emergency liquidity scheme to keep the nation’s cash machines working. ‘See Mamma Mia! as often as you need to until you start to feel calmer,’ was the short-term remedy I offered distressed readers that day. ‘Sing along to all its familiar refrains, except perhaps the one that goes: ‘Money, Money, Money/ Always sunny/ In the rich man’s world.’