A useful fiction

摘要

In May The Economist failed to dispatch a correspondent to Tirana, Albania, to attend the opening function of the third International Deposit Insurance Week. That may have been a mistake. By this week interest in the technicalities of how to protect the cash the public keeps in bank accounts had reached the campaign trail in America. Both presidential candidates, keen to calm a rattled public, proposed lifting the ceiling on deposit insurance from $100,000 to $250,000. This, said Barack Obama, would "help restore public confidence in our financial system". The change was included in the revised bail-out bill Congress is considering. Meanwhile Britain's government said it would raise its scheme's ceiling and other big countries in Europe could follow.