Bankers have already had a barrage of abuse, so an article in New Scientist comparing them to pond life will perhaps raise few eyebrows.

But it is worth a closer look.

The popular science journal cites experts in complexity and ecology in its latest edition explaining how the financial system is a tangled network of relationships, like the ecosystem of a pond.

Normally, life ticks over just fine. But then the wrong set of circumstances - an explosion of algae, perhaps - trigger a change, throwing the whole community of life forms off balance. The result is a stagnant, smelly swamp.

“Slow changes have been accumulating for years, such as levels of indebtedness. None on their own seemed big enough to trigger a response,” says Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Environment Institute. “But then you get a trigger - one investment bank falls - and the whole system can then flip into an alternative stable state, with different rules, such as mistrust.”