In all the finger-pointing, one party has escaped with less attention than deserved - business schools. It is opportune to ask what schools would be teaching if they took mess management seriously.

First, they would be teaching systems thinking, not the mathematical modelling that passes for it today. Mess management requires people who know the interconnections among diverse systems of households, finance, the economy, politics and society. It requires people that tolerate and can map out complexity. Too many business faculties do not do this, consequently adding to the mess instead of helping to manage it.

Second, inter-systems experts are not in business schools. Mark Lombardi, a conceptual artist, showed how important Osama bin Laden was to politics and finance. He placed bin Laden in an earlier financial and political crisis - he did it in 1979!