Why am I so upbeat? Well, only this week that great internationalist President George W. Bush announced he was summoning world leaders to Washington to “advance common understanding” of the causes of the crash. In the words of the White House, these leaders will frame “a common set of principles for the reform of the regulatory and institutional regimes for the world's financial sectors”. That is a bit of a mouthful, I know. But, hey, multilateralism is a long word too.

Some readers, I suspect, may be a little more sceptical about the outcome of what breathless European leaders have billed as the new Bretton Woods. How, others may ask, will France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's Gordon Brown share the plaudits? We cannot have two heroes of the hour – not, anyway, when one happens to be French and the other British.

I would also be the first to admit that the timing of the summit, coming 10 days after the US presidential election, is not ideal. Mr Bush will have reached the last lap of a broken presidency. His successor, presumably, will attend as an observer.