This remains the nub of the sub-prime problem. The so-called "stress tests" – bank balance-sheet inspections by regulators, who then tell the markets what they think – just won't do. Investors themselves need to judge who is solvent and who isn't. Only then can realistic, enduring judgments be made about which banks should and shouldn't survive. Capitalism works only when, as Lord Acton might have put it, there is "full disclosure" of all relevant information and creditors can take a meaningful view. So eurozone governments need to stand behind retail depositors, make the financial institutions "fess-up" and let the cards fall, forcing the bombed-out European banking sector to consolidate.