"Nowadays, a lot of Banks have a higher cost of funding than corporates - that makes it very difficult to be a lender to corporates," says Mr Riese.

“现如今，很多银行的筹资成本高于企业，这使得银行很难再向企业放贷，”里斯表示。

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Ulf Riese of Svenska Handelsbanken (see article) remembers the pressure that the bank resisted to join its peers in the Baltic lending boom.

ECONOMIST: The revolution within

Mr Riese reckons that the bank's initial shift to a decentralised model was helped by the fact that lending growth was very tightly regulated in Sweden at that time.

ECONOMIST: More Swedish lessons for the banking industry

And we ended the night by choosing between 312, 120 possible combinations at the Burger, on Sunset Boulevard, and getting a cookie ice cream sandwich at Diddy Riese in Westwood, right near the UCLA campus.

BBC: This is Los Angeles week