Our esteemed Reserve Bank governor is back from the Jackson Hole chin-wag and has resumed his guns at dawn scrap with the banks over the amount of money they have to stash away just in case the world ends.

Maybe at Jackson Hole they told him the world was ending, so he's back with his latest salvo. Nothing is too big to fail is his new line.

Just to get us back up to speed, Orr wants the amount of money banks keep aside for calamity to double. The banks say it's too much, he's too nervous and conservative and the more you make them keep, the more expensive banking gets, and that cost is only passed onto the punter.

I always like to argue on fact, not theory. And the fact is the best example of trouble we have of late is the GFC. In 2008, the world started to melt down and a lot of stuff hit the fan. But our banks didn’t, not only didn’t they, they didn't even come close.

Say all you want about banks, but if you're arguing on fact, you must concede in this part of the world they have been - and continue to be - very, very successful. You might ironically argue too much so - look at the reportage a week or so back on their results. Records are still being broken. They are not falling over. Could something we have never seen before happen? I guess. And that is Adrian's argument. But it's no way to live life or run business.

The banks, to some degree, have to be allowed to trade on their professionalism and record, and he looks like a sticky-beak nanny who's telling them what's what because he knows best.

And by the way, there are things too big to fail. The American car industry was in the GFC. NZ was last time, or indeed Christchurch, so banks and cars and cites are indeed too big to fail. Governments can write cheques no one else can. I suppose he would argue it’s not a government's job to protect a bank but then they seem happy to protect our money, given the government guarantee on savings.

But here's the over-arching point. There is a very definite and distinctive line to be drawn around being safe and being sensible vs being risky. On evidence, can our banks mount a case they're good and safe? Yes. Do we want to add needless cost to our lives and businesses? Just on the off chance? No.

In a nutshell, Adrian is too cautious, too nervous, and too glass half empty. He's pushing his angst into our pockets for no good return or real reason.