Last week, the ombudsman ruled that the insurer failed to inform people who became Equitable customers after 1998 about the full extent of liabilities on guaranteed annuity rate policies.
President Bush has repeatedly demonstrated a full appreciation of the limitations and liabilities of working with the so-called "international community" on matters where vital American interests are at stake.
The necessary steps would also involve full "mutualisation" of eurozone sovereign debt, the pooling of sovereign liabilities, which would permit the European Central Bank to be the lender of last resort to the currency union - and give the eurozone the kind of protection against the risk of default that the UK and the US have.