Your money or your life

Such was the choice offered by the highwaymen of old.

It is a refrain reprized by the private bankers attending the Davos annual bankers' back slapping confab.

As Guambat speculated a few days back, it might come to pass that the big banks would take advantage of an overdue correction to pull the stocks out from under the market in push back against Obama's pulling the props out from under the banks.

This is how the Guardian characterized the banks' proposition: Choose reform or recovery, bankers tell world leaders.

Guambat would have thought that it was not an either/or proposition. And so do many other world leaders, all noted in that article. Make no doubt about it, Obama is carrying the pail, but he's got formidable support in Europe, Canada and elsewhere.

The Independent joined in on the reporting of the balking banks in this report: Bankers fight back against Obama

Lord Levene, for insurers at Lloyd's of London, told attendees that tougher regulation in the West might push businesses to new financial centres – such as Singapore, Shanghai and Zurich.

Now that's a lame threat.