The only realistic solution to the financial crisis.

In case you haven't been watching the news lately, the global banking system is in a spot of bother. Internationally, at least five major banks have gone under and without major government sponsored financial packages there would probably have been more. A proposed bailout package by the US government has been held up by all kinds of political and economic shenanigans (as this interesting post by calligrafiti points out) and overall things could be better.
People from every side of the political spectrum have been promising that they know what is going on, from the left claiming that this proves that capitalism doesn't work to the right claiming that this proves government intervention in the market doesn't work.
In truth, they're both wrong - the great thing about the market based system is that it creates shocks but it is also incredibly resilient to them and doesn't go into the sort of catastrophic failure which characterised the Soviet Union, or require anyone to be run over by a tank as in Tiananmen Square.
However, the short-term is likely to be quite painful for a lot of people and deciding who has the answer is a tricky one, especially as simply everyone claims to. What we need is a person - or preferably a group of people for teamwork - of impeccable moral credentials, who have a track record in quick thinking and planning and seeing those plans through to successful completion.
But where are we to find such people?

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to jail for a crime they did not commit. They promptly escaped to the Los Angeles underground where they survive as soldiers of fortune. And now, if you have a problem, and nobody else can help - and if you can find them - maybe you can hire...The A team.

The scene: A sleazy Los Angeles backstreet at 2am. Rain trickles off awnings and a hobo slumps in a doorway under a plastic sheet. A man enters. Upon closer inspection , he can be seen to be wearing an extremely sharp suit and red braces with dollar signs on them. He has slicked back pomaded hair and is smoking a Romeo y Julietta no.3. He is reading from a piece of paper.
Man (muttering): They said they'd be here. They said they'd be here.
Hobo: Hey, buddy! Any spare change?
Man: Sure. (He hands the hobo a $100 bill). Help the little guy, that's my motto.
Hobo: Hey, thanks! Say, you look like you've got a problem, buddy.
Man: Yeah. I was hoping to meet some people who might have been able to solve it, but it looks like this was a wild goose chase.
Hobo: So take a minute. Tell me about it.
Man: Things are bad. The UK banking system is teetering on the brink of collapse and I thought I could...
Hobo: That sure sounds bad. How did that happen?
Man: Well, it's a long story...
Hobo: Heh! I'm not going anywhere!
Man: Well, back in 1997, Gordon Brown made two changes to the UK financial regulatory network that had long-term effects. Firstly, he rewrote government spending reporting rules so that the Private Finance Initiative projects would no longer appear as debt, and then spent the last decade keeping interest rates artificially low to allow the government to borrow heavily to fund this whilst not showing up on the books. This has allowed the highest level of state debt against GDP since Richard the Lionheart mortgaged the entire country to finance the third crusade.
Hobo: Things could be worse!
Man: Secondly he removed tax relief from pensions, allowing him to extract tax from people's retirements. This, coupled with low interest rates, convinced people that saving for retirement was no longer the best financial option and so they started to buy property with low interest mortgages as an investment for their old age. This fuelled a rapid and ultimately unsustainable housing bubble whose collapse precipitated a crisis in the interconnected undervalued risk in financial institutions.
Hobo: So why did you undervalue risk?
Man: Companies are required by law to act in the interest of their shareholders, not their customers. Financial institutions which did not expand into this market would have seen declining share value and could have been accused of deliberately reducing their market capitalisation. I could have gone to prison!
Hobo: So none of this is your fault?
Man: Yah, I'm just an innocent victim of circumstances. Have a cigar.
Hobo (pulling off a rubber nose): Well, things are looking up, because you just hired the A-Team.

London, two days later, the offices of Goldman Sachs. Enter the entire team.
Murdoch: ...so I'm telling you, BA, Capitalism is just neo-mercantilism which attaches the illusion of wealth in order for the oligarchs and bosses to maintain their control.
BA I've had enough of this jibberjabber, foo'! Hannibal, do something about this one! Ever since you gave him that copy of Dreams from my Father he's been coming out with this same crazy nonsense!
Face BA, what are you doing here? I thought you didn't like flying?
BA: I only hate flyin' when this lunatic is the pilot! George Soros flew me over in his corporate jet and I didn't want to miss that!
Hannibal: Okay. Here's what we know. A decade of unprecedented economic growth has reached the end of it's natural cycle and the treasury haven't made any provision against this entirely predictable event. To bail us out, we're going to need cash. Face, I need you to scrounge up seven hundred billion dollars.
Face: Aw, now, Hannibal, come on. I know I'm good, but am I seven hundred billion dollars good? I can get you a helicopter in Hanoi, but... It might take a week, maybe two.
Hannibal. We haven't got a week. Any moment now the Alliance and Leicester could post worse than expected results and the economic shockwave could bankrupt everyone in the world.
BA: Then what we gonna do, Hannibal?
Hannibal: We're just going to have to convince Gordon brown to give all those pensioners their money back the old fashioned way.
BA : But how we gonna do that? He's holed up in the Bank of England surrounded by Cabinet Minsters! Tryin' to get in there will be suicide!
Hannibal: Hey, Face! You've got a veneer of glibness and superficial charm overlying your real self-serving nature. That gives me an idea!

Interior, the Bank of England. Gordon Brown is sitting at a colossal desk surrounded by a bevy of scantily-clad lovelies (Ruth Kelly, Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears). He is lighting a cigar with a tax return, smirking and fondling a huge pile of PFI contracts in a disgusting manner. A flunky enters.

Flunky: Prime Minister? Tony Blair is here to see you.
Face enters, wearing a suit and smiling with his mouth but not his eyes. He is followed by the rest of the team, all in suits.
Gordon Brown: Tony? I wasn't expecting you? He looks again. Hang on! You're not Tony!
Hannibal: That's right, sleazeball. We're here to get the money you stole from the pension funds.
Gordon Brown: You'll never get it! It's mine! Those pensioners were all going to freeze to death this winter anyway! They didn't need it! Guards!
Alastair Darling, Hilary Benn and David Milliband burst in, carrying AK47s. The team look around and then slump in defeat, putting up their hands.
Gordon Brown: Take them away and lock them in the vault. I'll decide what to do with them later.
Hannibal: I see it's true what they say - you're incapable of making a snap decision, aren't you?

Interior, the vault of the Bank of England. The team sit disconsolately amongst huge piles of stacked banknotes.
Murdoch: So this is all the money from the pension funds, then?
Face: Sure is. Billions and billions of pounds. And I can't even take a single dime.
BA: What we gonna do, Hannibal? We're trapped!
Hannibal (From behind the piles of banknotes): Not quite, BA - I think we've just had a stroke of luck!
The camera pans round the notes to reveal two Jaguar cars, a pile of sacks of fertilizer, some pipes, a pile of armour plate and a pair of oxy-acetyline torches.
BA: Hot dang, Hannibal! You are a lucky sonnuvva-! You got the jazz!
Cue montage sequence of BA welding, Hannibal mixing something, Murdoch fixing plates to the cars, Face trying to avoid working, etc.

Scene: In the main hall of the bank of England. A large group of forlorn-looking bankers are being held at gunpoint by members of the cabinet whilst Gordon Brown parades up and down in front of an unfinished huge gold statue of himself supported by scaffolding.
Gordon Brown: I'll teach you to say I'm a financial illiterate! I'll teach you to say that running a deficit in the largest boom in history was poor planning! You worthless bankers! I'm prudent! Prudent! And when people see this gold statue of myself that I've built they'll all know I invested their money wisely in public services and infrastructure!
Banker (Nervously twisting his top hat in his hands): Senor Brown! We are jos' poor bankers and workers! Your taxes! We cannot afford them any mor'! Myself - I have a wife, three mistresses, four children and two alimony payments to support! I might lose som' of my houses! You are starving our trost fonds!
Gordon Brown: Imbecile! You simply do not understand my - what!? (He looks around at the sound of a powerful engine gunning from behind the huge vault door). What's happening?
Brown and his goons are bowled over as an armour plated Jaguar bursts through the vault door. Milliband, Hoon and Burnham are sent sprawling like skittles. Hannibal pops up out of the sun roof of the car holding a bazooka made from a pipe. He starts firing wads of £50 notes into the bankers pockets.
Banker: It's the A-team! Our bonuses are saved!
The Jag careers into the statue of Gordon Brown which tilts alarmingly.
Alastair Darling (Pointing at the scaffolding): Gordon, look out! The poles are falling!
Gordon Brown: Nonsense! The next election is winnable! I'm the best place man to steer the economy through this current period of - argh! (he is buried under the pile of scaffolding poles).
Hannibal climbs out of the car and pulls Brown free. His face is blackened and his tie is askew
Hannibal: Games up, Sleazeball. You're out of office. You'll be going to a few comfortable and well paid corporate advisory posts and a seat in the House of Lords for a long, long time.

The next day, at Goldman Sachs. The team are surrounded by grateful bankers. BA is accompanied by a mystery blond.
Banker: How can we ever thank you? You've saved everything we stand for!
Face: Well, a line into some low-risk 2% transaction offshore currency deals would be nice?
Murdoch: Now, Face, Face. The neo-Feudalist structure of Statism and interventionism is the only way to ensure a stable economic future; high state employment and low market impact mean -
BA: Shut yo' Jibber-Jabber, foo'! Yo' Crazy! Hannibal! I found us a new member of the team who ain't mad!
Boris Johnson: Cripes!
Hannibal: I love it when a plan comes together.