Or, as one influential mass e-mail that I have seen puts it, some Democratic funders have threatened to start demonstrating with "pitchforks (plastic!)" - unless the government showed that it was willing to take on the banks. Faced with that threat, which is merely the tip of a wider iceberg of voter anger, the Obama administration has acted; no doubt it now hopes that the pitchforks will vanish - or be re-directed against the banks.

However, the really intriguing question now is where regulatory reform goes next. Whether it will work as political strategy remains unclear. After all, what Obama did yesterday was not just bash the banks; he also implicitly undercut the idea of global co-ordination too.

Most notably, during the past few months, dozens of faceless bankers and bureaucrats have been scurrying around, in joint international committees, trying to hammer out regulatory solutions to matters such as bank structure, capital charges or derivatives regulation. And as they have done this dull, complex work, their guiding mantra has been the need to act in "a co-ordinated fashion".

But now, as politicians jump into the game, that delicate bureaucratic endeavour is being blasted apart. When the Obama administration unveiled its bank levy this month, for example, it did not consult the rest of the Group of 20 (or the International Monetary Fund, which had been dilligently beavering away on these issues for weeks.)

Nor did the British government co-ordinate with others, when it produced its own, crowd-pleasing banker tax. And yesterday's dramatic announcements by Obama were certainly not presented as part of a coordinated global plan; this is all about American politics - or pitchforks.

Will the bankers now regroup and fight back again Terminator-style? Certainly some would like to try, particularly since they think (or hope) that the lack of global co-ordination opens up the prospect of widespread future regulatory arbitrage. Indeed, even before Obama produced yesterday's, some senior financiers were insisting that they had good legal grounds to challenge the US bank levy and the UK bankers' bonus.

In practice, most bankers also feared it was too dangerous in political terms to try a legal challenge; but yesterday's announcement may have left them feeling they now have little to lose.

Either way, the one thing that is clear is that the regulatory path is now very unclear. For what is going on now is not so much a test of finance or economics, but a test of western political and social systems; or to put it another way, the real risks now are not those that can be modelled into a spreadsheet.

That has wrong-footed many bankers, who prefer to crunch numbers to assess their future. But perhaps it is not too surprising in historical terms.

After all, when the US stock market crashed in 1929, it took four long years before the Glass-Steagall act was implemented, after many tortuous battles.

On that basis, then, it would not be at all surprising to see this new tussle continue quite a bit longer, if not until 2012. This indeed is an epic fight; stand by for more plot twists. And more plastic pitchforks.

David Fuller's view President Obama's bank regulatory plans fall into the category of a known unknown, to use a Rumsfeldian description. We knew that regulatory changes were inevitable, and I maintain necessary, but the precise details were unknown. Meanwhile, after some obligatory words of contrition from bankers during last year's Congressional hearings, one could be forgiven for thinking that the financial companies which had to be rescued were returning to business as usual, putting their personal interests before those of the taxpayer or bank shareholders.

What about implications for markets as a result of this latest initiative?

If Gillian Tett's four concluding paragraphs above are correct, and this would not surprise me, then the acrimonious battle over financial regulation is certainly not over. To the extent that this commands centre stage, in terms of investor attention, the uncertainty created over financial sector earnings is clearly a headwind for stock markets as we have seen over the last few days.

Having backed away from new recovery highs, a number of leading stock markets have begun to erode initial support from their often large underlying trading ranges, albeit above their rising mean, represented by 200-day moving averages. You can see this with the DJ World Stock Index (weekly & daily) and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index (a day behind but will be lower when this Friday's action is included) (weekly & daily). Further erosion of underlying support, including breaks in the progressions of rising lows, would confirm upside failures and more lengthy corrective phases. Rebounds, preferably commencing with upward dynamics, are required to offset this current risk.

When I was asked yesterday about the implications of Obama's battle with the banks, I said that it was a short-term negative for stock markets due to increased uncertainty over earnings. However I also feel that it is positive for the longer-term. Bankers may be the in vogue villains for Hollywood (not for the first time) but we need sound banks. I remain of the view that we will not have stable banking sectors without good regulation, even though this may lead to a restructuring of our financial industry. Meanwhile, today's acrimonious debate, which is certain to be replicated in the UK and parts of Continental Europe, may cede further commercial advantages to emerging (progressing) market banks. (See also Eoin's comments below.)

Lastly, thanks to a subscriber, I can provide a top, independent banking industry analyst's view on this important topic.