As US banks clambered to repay their TARP proceeds last month, Mark Sainsbury of First State Super made a typically biting point at an AIST forum – will those banks also repay the private capital and additional business income they were able to generate while operat­ing with taxpayer-funded goodwill?

“We don’t want banks thinking they can repay the TARP money and press the re-set button, and six months from now be back doing the sorts of things that got us into this crisis.” Perhaps Tim Geithner will raise this in the “Dear Jimmy” letter he sends in reply to the sarcastic ‘thanks for noth­ing’ note that James Dimon, JPMorgan chief executive, joked he would send the Treasury Secretary on repayment of his bank’s TARP funds.