Teresa Hunter: You have to laugh about this mess – otherwise you'd cry

THERE weren't many laughs around this week, so I hope those caught up in the HBOS Lloyds TSB deal won't think me insensitive for trying to lighten your Sunday morning with a comedy sketch.

I'm a big fan of John Bird and John Fortune. This sketch, in which the banker George Parr explains how markets work, first appeared last November, just after the sub-prime crisis broke. It looks positively prophetic today.

Parr says that the first thing you have to remember about markets is they are made up of very sharp, sophisticated people who are the greatest brains in the world. Well, we can all say aye to that.

Then he goes on to say: "One day out of the blue, one of these very sharp sophisticated people screams. 'My God, something awful's happened. We've lost everything. What am I going to do, what am I going to do? Shall I jump out of the window? Yes, let's all jump out of the window.'"

But instead of jumping (is it wicked to wish they had?) they scream at each other: "SELL SELL SELL!"

Sound familiar? Try the next bit. "A few days later this very sharp and sophisticated person says, 'Things are going rather better than I expected. In fact we're rich. I think we should BUY BUY BUY.'"

And in the interim tens of thousands of jobs have been lost and real families' lives devastated.

Obviously senior politicians and officials at the Treasury and Financial Services Authority don't share my weakness for Bird And Fortune.

I mean, they can't have seen the sketch last November, can they?

But how could they have missed the warning signs of impending doom for HBOS's 70,000 staff after short-sellers launched a concerted raid on the company earlier this year, testing how easy it would be to bring it down?

The FSA held a bit of a review, then decided to do nothing. There's a surprise. Had it moved to block short-selling at that point HBOS might have survived.

Yes we know, the short-sellers weren't the only ones who were selling the stock, nor were they its only problem.

Respectable investors and fund managers had decided their nerves weren't up to the game and were looking for an exit. But don't forget, many have stop/loss positions. Once the shares hit a certain point they sell automatically, or their computer does it for them.

And certainly, HBOS had hit a funding crisis, and ordinary savers were getting jittery. But then who wouldn't with a share price constantly under attack? The most telling aspect is that despite the FSA putting out statements saying the bank was sound and well-capitalised, the share price kept falling.

I'm sure I got at least three at key moments; there may have been more. Did no one believe the watchdog?

The bit that really fascinates me, though, is if you go back to the Wall Street crash, big financial institutions were brought down by speculators deliberately dumping stock to force prices down, and then buying more cheaply and dumping again.

I thought new laws had been introduced nearly a century ago to prevent anything like that ever happening again. But then what do I know?

Wrong about HBOS

Talking of how little I know, earlier this year I predicted HBOS would survive this crisis and emerge stronger. I have to accept wholeheartedly that I was wrong.

Not that I was alone. I don't know anyone who could even this time last week have predicted two of our most respected banking brands would be swept away in a blink of an eye.

And it is true Halifax was at least partly the author of its own misfortune. Its hyping of its monthly house price index was instrumental in constantly feeding the property boom.

Having shaken off its sleepy building society heritage it was determined to beat the big boys at their own game, and grew its mortgage book for all it was worth.

Back to Bird And Fortune: "The point is the people who lent this money must have been incredibly stupid."

"Oh no, what was stupid was asking how much these houses were actually worth."

Several people I spoke to last week said it is time we threw the wunderkinds out, and got the old grey beards and elderly dames back in these organisations.

But the truth is, those at the start of their careers will have seen more over the last week than we have in a lifetime. Let's hope they have learnt some salutary lessons on how not to destroy value and lives.

Meanwhile, I'll leave the last word to George Parr, who said everything would be fine because "the Government and central bankers will give us all the money back we lost, of course."

If you didn't laugh you'd cry.