When Bankers Were Good: BBC2 Tues 9pm

John_Pierpoint

bendix wrote: »

Reckless, greedy or both could be accusations aimed at just about every portion of society over the last two decades, including consumers, lenders, politicians, the welfare state, unions and even the right.

So why single out one occupation to bash?

I can remember back in the 1970's, the customers of a Barclay's subsidiary, being describe as a "Flower" or a "Weed".

The flowers were the reliable punters who regularly bought more than they could afford and rolled over loan after loan after loan but did not get their account into in a financial/administrative mess.

Is there a great deal of moral difference between working for a bank or working for (say) British American Tobacco. if you job involves feeding an addiction?

[Anyone want to buy my duty frees?].

Interesting interview at about 08:50 on the Radio 4 "Today" programme

bendix

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

"Even the right" - heaven forbid.

Surely even the most rapid right winger would struggle to blame the unions for the mess we are in.

.

On the contrary. I can make a very good argument why the unions have played a contributory role in the west's inevitable decline to bankruptcy.

Unions have raised the average person's sense of entitlement to unaffordable levels and - in the process - spurned a massive spending frenzy so that working people have both aspired too and sought a lifestyle which, frankly, is beyond their financial needs.

Government in turn has fed into that, by raising its definition of a welfare safety net to a level that most now accept is ridiculous.

Big business has fed that need with a never-ending supply of must-have goods and services which feed that craving.

And banks have exacerbated that position by allowing cheap credit to those who can't afford it.

There are numerous consituent parts who have contributed to this issue. The financial sector are a part of that, but not the sole cause.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Kennyboy66

bendix wrote: »

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

I think you mean, What came first, blind prejudice or reasoned argument ?

Union membership was 13 million in the UK in 1979 it's now less than halve of that.
There are also more women who are members of trade unions (by a fair way) than men, mostly doing relativly low paid jobs in both the public and private sector.

Prehaps you should ask yourself why the worst excesses of banker capitalism and reckless lending came in 2 of the OECD countries which have the weakest unions and lowest union membership.

"Unions have raised the average person's sense of entitlement to unaffordable levels"

More than 75% of people working are not even in a union.

What other gems do you have ?

Unions to blame for Englands failure at the world cup.
Bad weather blamed on unions.

tomterm8

bendix wrote: »

for christsakes, my post on this thread was prompted by a childish claim that bankers don't believe in heaven!

Actually, I think the point was more reasoned than most would believe.

There has been a great change in values, over say the last three hundred years. A basic tenant of pre-modern thought was that collections of individuals (aka companies) should obey the same moral diktats as individuals.

Since limited liability came in, increasingly that has changed. It is now considered the moral duty of a limited liability company to make the most money for its shareholders that it can, within the law, even if to do so would involve actions that would be considered immoral by individual members of society.

Now... this results in things like IBM selling the computers to Germany that were used to help the murder of millions of Jews.

Within current capitalism (compared to pre-modern capitalism), it was the moral duty of IBM to do so.

Nothing about that is unique to banks, but banks are the most powerful private institutions in our society, even when they do good, it is their moral duty to maximize profit.

purch

the generic term banker is bad when used to talk about a profession

That's an Oxymoron :eek:

Somewhere (big bang?) it became possible for clearing banks to intermingle depositors money with the high risk funds and there was a massive increase in money, able to slosh about globally

Certainly the Big Bang (26/10/86) in the U.K., and the repeal of the Glass Steagal Act (1999) in the U.S. were the seeds that allowed this to happen over time.

Mr_Mumble

Hate to point out the obvious but Victorian 'bankers' took home around 95% of their pay compared to 50% for the modern day high earner.

You can't do as much good when the government is nicking it all from you!

1984ReturnsForReal_2

bendix wrote: »

At a time when banale and stupid generalisations are becoming de rigeur on MSE, I would like to nominate this post as a new low.

You're just making noise, aren't you? There are so many ways to rip this post to shreads for being trite and pathetic, that it's difficult to know where to start.

But let's try at least; let's start with your almost childishly invective comment that most rich bankers don't believe in heaven.

Could you determine, for a start, who precisely these rich bankers are, and how you happen to know the substance of their belief systems?

There's a good boy . .

Cheers for that Bendi.

Now try watching the program & you may want to look up the history of purchasing your place next to God.

Devoid of all facts you most definitively are. You may want to try educating yourself.

Start with churchs & donations & the history of. Then apply the same logic to charitable organisations.

Oh..... Don't bother then.... Just be a rude *anker.

Brallaqueen

Agreeing with Peabody so hard!

Kennyboy66

Great program and difficult to argue that religion didn't play a significant part in peoples giving whatever your faith.

I was struggling to think of British 21st century equivalents of the victorian philanthropist but found this list although a bit old.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/the-giving-list-britains-leading-philanthropists-1212441.html

A few bankers, hedgies and brokers on this list as well.

Another thought was how real is the need in say the UK compared with real poverty (as distinct from relative) in the 3rd world.

Joe_Bloggs

Also repeated 23:20 on BBC2 Wed 23 November.
J_B.