Indeed provided you can maintain access to funding the opportunities in banking are the best that they have ever been in my life. [Emphasis added] The margins are massive.  Many people want (even need) to borrow money – and if you have money to lend you can select on the absolutely best credits.  Your risk is much lower than it was on the average loan in the boom.  The implied return on equity is much higher.

Happy days.

Of course they are happy days only if can maintain your funding (far from being a given) and you do not have losses so big from the boom that you will be wiped out (also far from being a given).

But in the past most banks that have got into trouble have been recapitalised by pre-tax, pre-provision earnings.  And at the moment pre-tax, pre-provision earnings are going up.

For the record this is very different to Japan.  In Japan bank spreads collapsed to 30bps.  They did this because of the vast excess deposit bases at zero interest rates.  But I cannot find another banking crisis in which bank spreads have fallen. [Emphasis added] Does anyone else know one?