Grahame Broadbelt is right. We need a systemic analysis. But it is hard to have systemic regulation because the issues being regulated are global and the regulators are not.

The system is also dynamic. Each time the system has a big malfunction the exact cause is different.

So we do need stronger regulation but the risk of acting only through regulation is that you make people feel even less responsible for their own conduct. That’s why the financial services system and all the professions that serve in it need their Hippocratic Oath –as proposed by Tomorrow’s Company four years ago.

The military say that the best way to take a bridge is from both ends at once.

We need regulation to tackle systemic risk, but we can lessen the origins of much of that risk if we insist on the right values and behaviours. Why should the manufacturer of debt be any less responsible for the human origins of that debt than the manufacturer of running shoes for the conditions in which those shoes were made.

“Shockwaves rock shares”. “Meltdown in the global economy. “ “Day of reckoning on Wall Street”

These were the headlines that greeted me yesterday morning.

So the summer of stewardship is under way. We have launched our new report ‘Why Stewardship Matters’ which shows how the ordinary person can start to insist on stewardship from the people who supply financial services.

“UBS chiefs knew of rule breaches” says the FT headline on 13 August.

“Credit Suisse failed to act on trades” says the FT headline on 14 August.