I HAD a dream last week. The world was a giant Monopoly board. To the Monopoliers, there was only one thing to invest in: real estate. Our Monopoly lifestyle, celebrating greed and the pursuit of properties, was decadent. When the impossible happened – the housing market crashed and we ran out of cash – our world seemed hopeless.

But it was also a world where the most reckless moguls were bailed out of their mistakes by the Government’s Community Chest. In this make-believe land, the phrase “too big to fail” was used like a get-out-of-jail-free card for financiers holding too many subprime Monopoly houses and hotels. They traded like cowboys; gambled without consequences.

So imagine my surprise when I woke up and realised that none of it had been a dream at all. 

Last week, the folks on Pennsylvania ­Avenue seized control of America’s two largest mortgage companies, named after inbred cousins: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. With half of the US mortgage market in their pocket, they pulled the too-big-to-fail card, the same card that was employed in the Bear Stearns rescue six months ago and the Long Term Capital salvage 10 years back.

Indeed, there are so many get-out-of jail-free cards floating around our world of finance, eagle-eyed City traders have started thinking that if Fannie, Bear or LTC are any guide, it doesn’t take a financial genius to crack the rogue code to City success:

1. Disregarding all fiscal responsibility, take mind-boggling risks with your bank’s money. 2. Sit back, relax and watch the money roll in. Or get bailed out.

The pay-offs of this coin-flip are irresistible. Heads, you win. Tails, they lose. Heads, your investments pay off, you retire by 30 and spend your days guzzling cocktails with Brazilian models; tails, taxpayers pick up the tab and the bank you were disgraced at no longer exists. You write a book about your huge losses which turns into a bestseller, then a TV mini-series.

Economists have a fancy excuse for this rogue ­behaviour – they call it the “moral hazard”. But a much more fitting term sprang to my mind: the “immoral bastard”.

While Fannie and Freddie shares are today­ about as valuable as Monopoly money, its executives Daniel Mudd and James Reda stand to take home severance payments of $9.3m and $12.4m respectively. Responsible for a $6tn fail, shouldn’t they, instead, go directly­ to jail?

At least in Monopoly, going bust spells game over. If the City offers lots of cash with no apparent risks, then taking our Chances makes a whole lot of non-Monopoly sense.

What do you think of our new City Girl?

Email citygirl@thelondonpaper.com

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