So for a moment we can enjoy a little sweet revenge, as the Big Bad Banks are fined a total of almost $6 billion for their manipulation of foreign exchange and other rates.

Do those fines, though, serve any useful purpose?

Will they provide restitution to the many of us who were fraudulently overcharged by those banks, which then turned our money into their profit, and paid out lavish incentives to those staff who were running the fraud?

Will they deter employees from devising and operating such schemes to inflate their bonuses?

Will they ensure that the regulators, who should have recognised what was going on, will be diligent enough to prevent future fraud?

Will they ensure that the politicans, who failed to install effective regulatory systems, will change those regulators?

Will any of the many, who have literally laughed all the way from the bank with obscene bonuses and other payouts, face any personal penalties?

Will any major political party in a Western democracy dare to take effective measures to stop more from gorging themselves at this same trough in the future?

It would be really refreshing to hear someone express determination to address this pervasive disease of laissez faire. Or perhaps our politicians, regulators, and banks think that we will be fobbed off with such apparently dizzying sums – of our money.