When Bankers Were Good: BBC2 Tues 9pm

purch

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

TruckerT

purch wrote: »

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Thanks, I knew it really, but I didn't know how to type a circonflex!

TruckerT

vivatifosi

Very impressed with the French accent there purch. I'm hopeless at typing anything that doesn't involve standard keys.

Finally got to watch the programme. Other than Hislop's changing and multi-directional hair, there were two things that stood out for me:

1) How many women there were at the helm of banking families in Victorian times.
2) That the average giving to charity was 10% across the country anyway (possibly though not stated as such because the concept of tithing was more commonplace).

Dare I suggest that its not just the bankers getting stingier?

TruckerT

vivatifosi wrote: »

there were two things that stood out for me:

1) How many women there were at the helm of banking families in Victorian times.

2) That the average giving to charity was 10% across the country anyway (possibly though not stated as such because the concept of tithing was more commonplace).

Dare I suggest that its not just the bankers getting stingier?

1) I wouldn't have said that those women were 'at the helm', they were simply under-employed, and used their spare time to spend the wealth of their husbands on 'good causes' - Elizabeth Fry's husband ws declared bankrupt (these days, he would probably have been bailed out...)

2) I don't recall much detail about 19th century levels of charity-giving. I was surprised by the generalisation

TruckerT

TruckerT

TruckerT wrote: »

I wouldn't have said that those women were 'at the helm', they were simply under-employed, and used their spare time to spend the wealth of their husbands on 'good causes'

ps - if their husbands had owned expensive yachts in the Med, or islands in the Caribbean, then maybe their wives would have behaved differently...

TT

StevieJ

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

[For those who watched the records of the Old Bailey dramatised as Garrow's Law last Sunday].

I must say we have favoured recently by TV, what with that programme, Doc Martin and Merlin, all amongst my favourites.

StevieJ

TruckerT wrote: »

ps - if their husbands had owned expensive yachts in the Med, or islands in the Caribbean, then maybe their wives would have behaved differently...

TT

Or maybe they were the equivalent of the career gals of today.

toby3000

Regarding modern bankers and whether they do or don't believe in Heaven;

Even if bankers had an unusually high level of religiousity, the simple fact is that modern Christians are MUCH less concerned with the after-life and much less likely to talk about it than they would have been in Victorian times. For mainstream Christians, Hell has receaded quietly into the background. People just aren't as concerned with the afterlife anymore (probably because death isn't as close at hand).

TruckerT

StevieJ wrote: »

Or maybe they were the equivalent of the career gals of today.

Status symbols change with the times - maybe the 19th Century philanthropists achieved higher status from their generosity than from their wealth

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are possibly in the vanguard of a new beginning, or maybe just a couple of sad old rich guys with nothing else to buy except media coverage

TruckerT

TruckerT

toby3000 wrote: »

People aren't concerned with the afterlife

What's the afterlife?

TruckerT