Posted on 09/05/2009 2:50:15 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Of banks and vampire squid
Patrick Hosking: On the money
The row over the usefulness of bankers rumbles on, with many of our leaders rushing to the defence of the indefensible. The original remark by Lord Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, that some banking was socially useless, is on the face of it incontestable. Never mind useless, some banking has proved to be spectacularly harmful. Surely, with £1.3 trillion of public money committed to the bank bailout and business failures and unemployment soaring, we can at least agree on that?
Apparently not. Alistair Darling, despite plenty of encouragement from John Humphreys on the Today programme yesterday, refused to concede even this much, giving no support to the FSA head and absolutely opposing his suggestion that the City needs to shrink back.
The normally sure-footed Richard Lambert, head of the CBI, the employers’ body, attacked Lord Turner for even raising the issue. “In a free society, it’s not the job of a politician — or, for that matter, of a regulator — to argue that a particular form of activity is or is not of social value,” he opined.
There is so much to challenge in this assertion, it’s hard to know where to start. Perhaps with the suggestion that, in a free society, everyone — even regulators — should be free to express an opinion, even if Mr Lambert doesn’t like it.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.timesonline.co.uk ...
Ping!
From Oscar Brand’s “Three Prominent Bastards”!
The Banker, The Broker and The Washington Joker.
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