It takes more than a globally competitive economy to have a sound banking system. For the third straight year, the United States finds itself at the top of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as part of its annual Global Competitiveness Report.

I’m reading a strange little book this week. It is called The Fall of Northern Rock and is written by an ex-employee of the now nationalised bank called Brian Walters. I’m not quite sure why Walters was the one commissioned to write the book, for the simple reason that he doesn’t seem to have any more inside knowledge into the affair than the rest of us.

It is easy to think about the credit crunch in terms of banks. The banks made these weird structured products, the banks are responsible for the borrowing rate, the banks falling market cap is dragging on the FTSE, etc.

Banks haven’t exactly been covering themselves in glory recently. The sector has gone from one pratfall to another ever since Northern Rock first warned it was in trouble last summer.

When is a Black Swan not a Black Swan? When the “perfect storm of highly improbable events” happens all the time.

Nobody rings a bell at the bottom of the market and it is a fool’s game to gamble on where the peaks and troughs are going to be, so we don’t.

It certainly comes as no surprise to The Fleet Street Letter that Labour are placed third in the local elections. Less than 25% of the vote for Labour, with Cameron’s mob pushing up in the 40’s and the Lib Dem’s pipping them at the post for second place.

Well, as I suspected, it doesn’t look like the Bank of England’s £50bn injection is going to bring down mortgage rates any time soon.

Call me paranoid, but when the bullets are flying and the bodies are falling, I’m inclined to worry that I might be next. As for the big banks, investment and otherwise, Bear Stearns is not in anyway shape or form the last man to hit the ground.

A contact of mine recently commented that the demise of Bear Stearns marked the greatest buy signal in the world. “It’s all uphill from here, Buddy!” Why, I asked him, would one more corpse in a long string indicate a turning point for the stock market?