Worse than the admiration of the golden calf is the mutual admiration between the golden calves.

Sir David Bodanis in “How we were all blinded by the golden calf”, September 19, says “Raise an institution such as the unfettered financial world to the role of an idol and you are not critical of anything it does.” He is right though I would have to add that even more blinding than that is the mutual admiration between the golden calves.

Suffice to look at how all our financial regulators belong to the same club, with all the members having exactly the same set of mind and priorities in life namely “whatever… except for a bank-default, on my watch”; and where even those who are supposed to provide regulators with oversight overwhelmingly belong to the same club.

How is a club of mutual admiration born? One way is to create a debate forum reserved for “the world’s most influential economists” and then make sure that you never analyze why the members of the group did not help to influence in averting disasters like the current financial crisis.