The trick is getting consumers who were stupid enough to get into that big a hole in the first place, yet who (egged on by politicians) still insist that it’s all and exclusively the “bankers” fault, to realise why they’re being forgiven the pain.

Here in the UK, I can imagine an explosion of TV pundits telling people to “pay down your mortgage, so the money becomes an investment” – resulting in another house price bubble even before most people have accepted that the last one has burst.

The idea that you’re being forgiven the pain simply in order to carry on sinning, just slightly more prudently than before, so you can stimulate demand, is a subtle one for most people to grasp. I can imagine that Occupy, the bishops, and whichever party is in opposition at the time would use megaphones to tell people that this is exactly what they should not do….