THOUSANDS of finance workers in Guernsey and money centres across the world will put their feet up this weekend for a well-deserved break and think, ‘What on earth was that all about’.

For these are historic times. It is almost 80 years since financial markets across the globe have been so unsure. No one knows for certain what will happen next.

In a thriving international finance centre – directly responsible for more than a third of all incomes in the island – you might expect its business leaders to be rather nervous in the face of such economic mayhem.

Yet when the great and the good gathered in the Duke of Richmond Hotel yesterday for a business breakfast forum, there was little sign of panic.

Certainly there was a buzz in the air, as you might expect with the FTSE on course for the biggest one-day rise in its history.

But the view from a top table, which included the island’s chief minister, a leading accountant and two financiers, was that the island was well placed to ride out the storm.

Indeed, one went as far as to suggest that the nature of the island’s well-regulated industry was such that Guernsey could benefit from investors seeking shelter in our calmer waters.

Such is the dependence of the whole of the island on finance that such optimism should come as a relief to all, regardless of whether we understand the nuances of short-selling and sub-prime loans. Other industries sustain us, but finance is the main course.

Indeed, the only downside of a forum timed to coincide with the publication of a Financial Times supplement focusing on Guernsey is that it is hard to imagine it gaining much reading time among private and business investors struggling to ride this roller coaster.

But those who did would have found a relentlessly upbeat assessment of Doing Business in Guernsey.

And it included a welcome warning from the FT’s UK business editor to European politicians keen to clip the wings of ‘offshore’ finance centres: force the tax cash out of our jurisdiction and the EU risks losing it altogether.