"In Japan, I feel the fashion is to bash bankers. This is not a sound move in a modern society. It is a little bit hysterical," ponders Shin Nakahara, the corporate planning boss of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
Contemplating the sheer scale of the bank rescue ahead of them - estimated needs $500 billion - Japanese bankers might feel like turning round and bashing the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision.
In Basle 10 years ago the British and Americans capitulated to the Japanese ministry of finance (MoF) on the issue of tier-two capital. The concession allowed banks to count, as tier-two capital reserves, up to 45% of their hidden assets - that is to say, unrealized gains on their equity portfolios.
This defeated the whole effort of the Basle Committee to harmonize banks' capital adequacy ratios (BIS ratios) in the Group of 10 industrial countries. The British and American regulators had gone to Basle intent on forcing Japanese banks to boost their equity capital from 4% of all assets to 8%. The concession won by the MoF meant a tier-one ratio of 4% could be balanced by unrealized stock market gains of 4%.