... maybe [the banks] are in worse trouble than we realise. Maybe some of their grosser offences, such as huge sign-on bonuses, are in fact defensive action against the real credit crunch to come. In which case, hitting them with capital requirements now may mean we assuage our feelings at the expense of our pockets. ... consider a recent analysis from The Institutional Risk Analyst, a US banking consultancy. This ranks US banks by stress level from A+ to F. Total assets with the F-rated banks - those nearest the edge - are a forbidding $4,458bn.

If those banks go under, the cost of making good their depositors falls on the other US banks, under the terms of the Deposit Insurance Fund. As the IRA remarks, "before the G20 talk further about raising bank capital levels, we first need to find a way - and fast - to stabilise the existing capital base of the banking industry".

Let us recall that the sums needed to recapitalise the banks properly are colossal - not just because of their losses in the crash, but because they had reduced their equity so disastrously in the bubble years.

To do the job properly, we would need to restore capital ratios to the levels of the mid-1990s. Six months ago, the International Monetary Fund put the cost of that for US, European and UK banks at $1,700bn .... Since then, according to Dealogic, those banks have raised $135bn in equity, so we may trim the figure back to a mere $1,565bn. But the fact that less than a tenth of the sum has been raised is not reassuring.

... traditional sources of funding for the banks themselves - the wholesale markets, for instance - are still enfeebled. The bond markets are an exception, but only up to a point. Figures from Dealogic show that in the past year global bond issues by banks are down - in spite of government help - by 14 per cent from pre-crisis levels two years ago. Bond issuance by non-financial corporations, meanwhile, has risen 44 per cent.

The position of governments in all this is not to be envied. They are certainly aware of the dangers. But given the immense power of the banking lobby worldwide, they will also know that to force the banks into recapitalising - as is certainly necessary - they must harness popular resentment while it lasts.

As with so much in this crisis, timing is everything. But we should beware meanwhile of taking the apparent complacency of bankers at face value. They may just be whistling in the dark.