Another contemporary joke involved two men who jumped hand-in-hand from a high window at the Ritz, on account of their having jointly owned investments.

No wonder today's families, worried sick about losing their jobs, have lost patience with Bland and Dross.

By early November 1929 prices had been sliding for two months. It was no longer the case of finding a buyer if the price was right. Many investments had become unsaleable.

Those not yet broke tried hopelessly to save themselves by buying more stock. As John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in his classic The Great Crash 1929: "Men have been swindled by other men on many occasions. The autumn of 1929 was perhaps the first occasion when men succeeded on a large scale in swindling themselves."

Last week it was as if the Great British Public woke up to the swindle perpetrated upon it and started to say enough is enough. Its anger is unlikely to stop at Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand.

We willingly and eagerly handed interest rate setting policy to the Bank of England, only to watch it consistently get rates wrong. What I would like to know is: where is their apology? Which members of the Monetary Policy Committee are going to resign, and which should be suspended without pay?

Of course, we hope that the Bank cuts rates again when it meets this week. But the truth is, it is all too late. It can slash rates as hard as it likes, but sentiment has changed.

The Government must also come clean about its borrowing plans and produce a full analysis of the impact on future taxes, interest rates and inflation, and set aside time for debate. That way we can hope to prevent Labour using our money fruitlessly to shore up its position.

As Galbraith said of the speculators who kept investing more into dud stock: "If one has been a financial genius, faith in one's genius does not dissolve at once. To the battered but unbowed genius, support of one's own stock still seemed a bold, imaginative and effective course."

Actions speak louder than words. For all the applause of Brown's miracle cure for our economy, the world has been selling sterling for all its worth. What do they know that we have yet to be told?

Myths and reality

WHEN we draw parallels with the Wall Street Crash, we should never lose sight of the extent to which popular American culture turned what was undoubtedly a bad financial earache into an epic.

Some of the most famous myths about the era are just that – pure fiction. Take the suicides. Fact: the suicide rate for New York and the US as a whole had been rising throughout the boom years of the late 1920s, and showed no sudden surge at the end of 1929. There was no mass evacuation out of hotel windows.

Similarly, the myth that somehow the whole of America was ruined on the market. Fact: out of a population of 120 million, only 1.5 million owned stocks, and of those fewer than 600,000 were margin trading.

So here's a fact for our times. The headline rate of house price falls is meaningless, because only the desperate are selling. The prices they accept bear no resemblance to what a willing seller would accept. Your house has not fallen in worth by anything like what you are being told.

So do yourself a favour. Rein in your imagination and leave the blockbusters to Hollywood.

Criticism is too late

IT IS seven years since the Equitable went down, and regulators and the Government turned a blind eye to their own culpability. Shame on them. If any attempt had been made to learn from that disaster, the catastrophe before us now might have been avoided.

Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham told MPs last week that regulators were too "mesmerised" by the glamour of the UK's most reputable insurer to bring the out-of-control management to heel. Sound familiar?

Even though all the information was before them, just like the 25-year-old producer too scared to say no to two big stars, they stood watching this pleasure steamer sailing towards the Niagara Falls. They somehow thought all would be well.

The Government fought for years to cover up the cause of the Equitable calamity and prevent any public criticism of its role. Sadly, now the truth is out, Abraham's words have come far too late.

My mother learned the hard way

PENSIONS are a hot topic in the Love household, but mum-of-two Sharon learnt about them the hard way, writes Teresa Hunter.

Her mother retired, only to find she would receive a tiny state pension because she paid the married woman's stamp for most of her working life rather than full NI contributions.

Sharon, 33, of Dunfermline, said: "The whole family has been looking at pensions because we were shocked at the pittance of the state pension she is paid. She's had to go back out to work to top it up."

Although 33-year-old Sharon, an accountancy graduate, went back to work after Sophie, three, was born; when Joshua, now one, came along, the cost of childminding became prohibitive.

She says: "I decided to stay at home because otherwise I would have been working for nothing once I had paid out for childcare. But with private pensions the way they are I realised I would be relying on my state pension in old age."

She feels previous generations have been let down, arguing:

"My mother is very astute, but she had no idea she was depriving herself of her pension."

Sharon is now determined not to make the same mistake. "I shall do a pensions forecast and read all the information I can find."