The question on everyone’s lips following Scott Brown’s defeat of Barack Obama victory in Massachusetts, securing himself the crucial 41st Republican Senate seat needed to filibuster any bill: is America ungovernable? (eg here, here, and, addressing similar issues, here.)

The answer, as regards the Senate, should be discounted. Ronald Reagan had to contend with a Democratic House of Representatives, Bill Clinton with a Republican Senate. That’s democracy for you. The same question has been asked for generations, yet America has carried on, as Megan McArdle points out.

There is a real problem, though. Americans seem to be getting ever more split, with sharper divides between liberals and conservatives not just on social and religious issues but also economic issues. This isn’t just about the rise of the tea party movement, or the viciousness of much of the opposition to healthcare reform. It is about the mainstream party members – particularly Republicans – and their views.

Consider this poll of Republicans from the weekend. A few religious and cultural points:

• 77% think schools should teach that Genesis explains how God created the world
• 31% think contraceptives should be outlawed
• 34% think the birth control pill is abortion
• 73% think “openly” (horrible phrase) gay men and women should not be allowed to teach in schools
• 68% think gay couples should be denied state benefits
• 31% believe Obama is a racist who hates white people

Bruce Bartlett has the standard liberal reaction to this sort of survey result: “between 20% and 50% of the [Republican] party is either insane or mind-numbingly stupid”.

There isn’t any sensible way to disenfranchise stupid people – although perhaps anyone who signed the Princess Diana memorial book should be blocked from voting for taking part in a mass delusion (that’s a joke, by the way). It is fair enough that such views should be represented in Congress. Americans may have more extreme social views than Europeans, and many of them may conflict with their own constitution, but that’s democracy for you.

The problem is that mainstream voters have to choose between socially (and fiscally) extreme conservatives and socially (and fiscally) extreme liberals, because there is no serious third option. (For example: the majority view in America is now that same-sex civil unions should be allowed, but gay marriage still not.)

As America has entrenched its two-party system, it is virtually impossible for independents to be properly represented. America is not ungovernable. But it is not properly, or democratically, governed either, and won’t be as long as those of extreme views maintain their holds on the two main parties (that’s without even talking about campaign contributions, but rational behaviour there appears impossible).

Jamie Dimon, who never tested JPMorgan’s portfolio to see what would happen in a housing crash, seems to have given a nod to the political pressure over bonuses. Higher-than-expected profits at the US bank, although disappointing dividends for investors. But there’s only one number the wider world wants to hear: what were the bonuses? JPM is the first bank to report, so this is the first indication of whether expectations of record payouts are right. Mixed news, for JPM at least. Even as profits rose, investment banking bonuses fell – in the final quarter. For the full year, though, total pay and bonuses soared to $9.33bn.

I could see he was grumpy as soon we starting talking. I thought it was just the restaurant’s delay bringing the beer, but it turned out to be bonuses. How unfair, he said, that the British government was imposing a bonus tax.

“It wasn’t me. I didn’t bring down the financial system. My bank [foreign, but bailed out by its own government] didn’t even take money from Alistair Darling. Why should I lose half my bonus?”

Because, I said, amazed that he didn’t get it, the whole financial system would have collapsed – including his bank – if the government hadn’t stepped in with taxpayers’ money.

“But what about the hedge funds? What about the accountants, the lawyers? They’re only still going because of the bail-outs.”

This is true. But they don’t pose a systemic risk. When Arthur Andersen collapsed, the government didn’t have to step in and rescue PwC or Ernst & Young. The hedge funds would have failed, it is true, but again the government would not have rescued them – none, in London at least, is big enough to threaten the system if it failed.

The banks are only paying out fat bonuses because of the government cash – not only would they have failed without it, but the liquidity sloshing round the markets is there because central banks provide it virtually for free to banks, and they are making big profits because of it. How bad is it for the government to take some of that back?

“But that applies to the hedge funds too. Why me? I had nothing to do with mortgages, I’m not even a trader. And where’s the beer?”

It is just politics. You can’t exclude every bit of a bank that had nothing to do with dodgy mortgage lending – although the banks are trying to do just this.

And you earn too much, I say, trying to move the discussion on to something which goes better with dinner.

“Yes,” he says, as his beer arrives at last. “Just politics.”

It isn’t really “just” politics. There is populism, certainly, the effort by Gordon Brown to draw a line between Labour and the Conservatives, or the effort by Nicolas Sarkozy to draw a line between Europe’s corporatist culture and “Anglo-Saxon” capitalism.

But there is also something deeper. Bank bonuses are causing outrage, in part, because they are being prepared while unemployment has become the new boom industry. Even more, people are annoyed because it looks as though government money goes in at one end of the bank, and bonuses pour out the other. This view is not wrong, either.

To fix this, all we have to do is make the banks pay their true cost of capital, by bringing in structures which demonstrate to investors that they will not be bailed out in a crisis (actually pretty hard to design, but CoCos are one possibility). The banks pay a lot more to borrow, profits go down – and bonuses will follow them downwards.