To be fair, it's not all Mr Barnier's fault. He's only part of a posse of international regulators riding furiously off in the wrong direction long after the horse has bolted. If even a fraction of the time spent on trying to protect us against a crisis that's already happened was devoted to finding a way out of it, then we might actually be getting somewhere. As it is, almost every part of the reform agenda is making matters worse, not better.