No one has any idea where this ends. For all the focus on the bailout and its vexed passage through the US Congress, the issue really is — must be — deeper. The issue is in the bowels of the market economy, in its fixation with debt funded by the proceeds of airy speculation. That can’t end well.

We are standing in the centre of a moment. The best we can do is watch it unfold, witness  to something big, something that has the uncertain, chaotic makings of history.