When is it going to end?

When is it all going to end? That's the question that's on the lips of most bankers and people in financial services as the shockwaves from the credit crunch threaten to plunge the world economy into recession.

As years of boom built on financial wizardry continue to unravel, there is a distinct lack of certainty among investors, hence today's five per cent fall on shares that make up the FTSE 100 index.

Even though world leaders have acted in recent days to develop a co-ordinated strategy to restore confidence in the world money markets, it has so far done little to steady the frayed nerves of investors both big and small.

Of course, the risk of it working means that precisely that those who benefited from the black-hatted financial services could continue to see this safety net to avoid disaster if continuing on the same track.

And so what if it does work? It will remain a bitter pill to swallow for tens of thousands of people in North Staffordshire who have seen the collapse of traditional jobs in the potteries, pits and other manufacturing industries over the past decade.

"Why did they save the banks," people might rightly ask, "but then go ahead let our companies go to the wall and our jobs to go overseas?"

"Self-regulation is finished," might claim France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, "Laissez-faire is finished." But that's fine to say after the horse, buoyed on credit default swaps and other complex derivatives, has bolted its gilted stables.

Indeed, Monsieur Sarkosy might even be wrong, given recent events in North Staffordshire.

After all, two of our biggest traditional employers have been making job losses, but it is the manner of the cuts that demonstrates the difference between strict self-regulation - i.e. spend only what you can afford - and throwing chance to the wind.

In one corner, you have JCB, a traditional, family-run, but expansionist manufacturer of diggers and other construction vehicles. It is seen - particularly by the Financial Times - as a bellweather for the state of British manufacturing. When it sneezes, so the cliche runs, everyone else in manufacturing catches the cold.

And it has recently caught a major dose of the sniffles amid the slump in demand for its products as construction firms stop work on new building work. It initially announced that up to 700 jobs could go back in the summer, reduced this to about 400, but then warned that another 150 jobs could go if staff didn't accept the prospect of a four-day working week.

This sort of ultimatum isn't shocking for JCB. While it is famous for the loyalty of its workforce, this devotion has been tested in recent by measures which although lead by hard-headed business logic, may appear authoritarian.

Back in 2003/4 cancelled its Christmas parties - but then, haven't most firms on the basis of damage limitation - and it came under fire after trying to change terms and conditions of staff.

Despite this, JCB remains a strong company - certainly on its balance sheet. Chairman Sir Anthony Bamford has shown his belief in UK production, believing in 'British is Best' and reinvesting profits back into research. It is something that has served the company well. Yes, it has invested and build new factories in new countries such as India and the U.S., but only to serve the domestic market, rather than attempt to cut costs by shifting production overseas.

In 2001, it cut 250 jobs after the Foot and Mouth outbreak, but then it rebuilt its UK workforce, with more than 4,000 in Staffordshire.JCB might be under the weather now, but there is no reason to imagine it can't bounce back.

From one corner to the other, Wedgwood was a once powerful pottery manufacturer which has succumbed to the pressures of globalisation.

Like its rival (and now sister company), Royal Doulton, Wedgwood dominated the pottery industry trade with a string of brands spanning tableware to figurines, and employed at least 4,000 people across Stoke-on-Trent.

For the past decade, it has been steadily shedding jobs amid a painful and bloody restructuring to become a lean, mean, luxury goods manufacturer rather than being a sluggish mass-volume juggernaut.

However, this transformation is still not complete, with an increasing fear that it could go the way of Royal Doulton - which was eventually bought by Wedgwood before it ran out of cash.

Indeed, that could have been the fate of Wedgwood's parent company Waterford Wedgwood. Its banks had set a deadline of Tuesday for the group to raise 75 million euros, which it did. But only because of the seemingly bottomless pockets of chairman Sir Anthony O'Reilly and brother-in-law and fellow director Peter Goulandris.

Together they have pumped hundreds of millions of pounds into the company without any sense that the group will return to profit.