What the public has seen instead, though, are clueless bankers giving themselves bonuses after being rescued by taxpayers, while instructing the lobbyists and lawmakers they own to resist any serious reforms. At the same time, we’ve had President Obama introducing his bank proposal, after his party’s Massachusetts defeat, in a way that seemed less intended to promote an intelligent discussion and more like an effort to use bank-bashing to boost sagging poll ratings. The administration didn’t even bother to prebrief other central bankers about its ideas.

Image Thomas L. Friedman Credit... Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

A senior British Treasury official told me at a background briefing in Davos: “Even America isn’t big enough to solve this problem on its own. ... This is a global problem. ... Be sure you understand the problem before you fix it.”

Banking reform has to be done carefully so that we end up with stronger banks lending more money. If the bankers want to be pigheaded and turn this into a war with the president, or the president wants to use bank-bashing to get his mojo back, there are a few things I can absolutely guarantee: more uncertainty, less lending, a slower recovery and fewer new jobs.

While the struggle between China and Google appears, on the surface, to be about Internet freedom, beneath the surface is a much deeper problem. As this newspaper reported last week, 34 American corporations have recently been targets of hacking attacks traceable to China. The C.E.O. of one of the technology companies that was hit, who asked not to be identified because he is still debating whether to keep doing business in China, said that in his case the attacks involved attempts to vacuum up source codes, designs, business plans, and anything else they could get their hands on. This industrial espionage emanating from China, the C.E.O. told me, “was the worst we have seen in 25 years.” As one U.S. official described it: “The penetration was very extensive and deeply troubling.”

Memo to China: You are playing with fire. Sure, the U.S. also has its hackers, but industrial espionage on this scale is not coming out of the U.S. If this continues, China will see more than Google pull up stakes. And how many U.S. companies in the future will ever want to buy Chinese-made software or computer systems, which might only make it easier for Beijing to penetrate their businesses? This hacking story is huge and brewing. If it explodes, at a time of rising tensions over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, fasten your seat belts.