Making money out of the gullible is perfectly acceptable

In the 4 March 2011 edition of The Daily Telegraph, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, was quoted thus:

“We allowed a system to build up which contained the seeds of its own destruction. We’ve not yet solved the 'too big to fail’ or, as I prefer to call it, the 'too important to fail’ problem. The concept of being too important to fail should have no place in a market economy…

Why do banks in general want to pay bonuses? It’s because they live in a 'too big to fail’ world in which THE STATE WILL BAIL THEM OUT on the downside… THE INSTITUTIONS BAILED OUT WERE THOSE AT THE HEART OF THE CRISIS… The problem is still there. The search for yield goes on. Imbalances are beginning to grow again… It would be a dereliction of duty for me not to warn.”

The Telegraph added:

"King also said traditional manufacturing industries had a more 'moral' way of operating. They care deeply about their workforce, about their customers and, above all, are proud of their products… [With the banks] there isn’t that sense of longer term relationships. THERE’S A DIFFERENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS CUSTOMERS. Small and medium firms really notice this: they miss the people they know.

The Governor added that good businesses 'keep a clear vision of who their customers are, and are run by people who don’t think they should simply maximise profits next week'."

King should be congratulated for speaking out in this way. He is, after all, criticising his own crew. In the interview, he also said this:

“If it’s possible [for financial services firms] to make money out of gullible or unsuspecting customers, particularly institutional customers, [they think] THAT IS PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE.”

Oh yes. Thatcher gave them the power to fleece us, the Blair/Brown combo consolidated that power and now they think they can suck the blood of the righteous at will. Well, in a world run by the righteous the bankers would be gathered up, (along with the most obscenely fat of the fat cats and the politicians who enfranchised their greed) tried for treason and found guilty. After which their wealth would be conficated. The former trough-gobblers would then be set to work 'doing the jobs we don't want to do any more'.

Of course, without a world-wide revolution, the righteous will never run the world. The average Brit just doesn't have a revolution in him, does he? In which case, it looks like we'll have to put up with have the blood sucked out of us for a while yet.