There is an old business saying to the effect that, if you owe the bank a million dollars, you worry, but if you owe the bank a hundred million dollars, then the bank worries.

This is why the same bank that forecloses on a small business after two or three missed payments will bend over backwards to “restructure” the finances of a big company that has been far more reckless with the bank’s money. The bank simply cannot afford to write off a huge debt.

One of the minor compensations of a general recession is that a lot of small debts are the equivalent of a huge debt.

So when the current uncertainty in the financial markets was triggered by the “sub prime” mortgage crisis in the United States, the banks’ instinctive reaction was to foreclose on the mortgages as they defaulted – but there are signs that that might change.

It is not that the banks are being generous. It is pure self-interest on their part. Foreclosing means that that they simply have a lot of unsold properties on heir hands at a time when prices are falling. If they sell, prices fall further and they have to write off more bad debt. This undermines their asset base at a time when they are looking a bit vulnerable themselves.

So it is not only populist candidates for the American Presidency who are calling for a reduction in the number of foreclosures – even the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve has pointed out how undesirable they are.

It would be nice to think that the banks might learn from this – and possibly realise at last that this same principle of restraint in foreclosing is in their own interest in respect of small business as well as mortgages.