And some of the blame goes to -- Alan!

Treasury secretary Tim Geithner (he of the dodgy tax returns) made an astonishing admission on the Charlie Rose program last week. With respect to the bubble that burst, he said:

'But I would say there were three types of broad errors of policy and policy both here and around the world. One was that monetary policy around the world was too loose too long. And that created this just huge boom in asset prices, money chasing risk. People trying to get a higher return. That was just overwhelmingly powerful.'

Mr Geithner is probably a bit too ready to share the blame with other central bankers, but it's refreshing that he's willing to finger our own Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke for keeping interest rates too low for the better part of a decade. It was our Fed chairmen who provided the punch bowl for the party.

I suppose it's too much to hope that Barney Frank will now step forward to admit that his infamous desire to 'roll the dice' with Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac also poured high-octane booze into the bowl. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford