They might be 'bankers' but they're our 'bankers'

by Neil Thomas
December 4th, 2009

When the financial meltdown happened, fingers were pointed (sometimes two-at-a-time) at the greedy bankers, the capital market manipulators, the currency speculators, the short-selling hedge fund managers and all the other high-living, high-spending, lie-peddling financiers that operated internationally throughout the complicated world of high-finance and low-morals that we all claimed we had always despised.

So, the banks were rescued and some scalps were nailed to the wall and there was mass moralising about the abysmal standards of behaviour and reckless management that had got us into such a mess.

Gradually, there came news of profits flowing and bonuses being payable and greed has once again surfaced, but apparently we ought not to interfere, even in state-owned banks, to prevent the hitherto castigated rewards being paid to frankly undeserving bankers.

Oh, and then along comes Monsieur Sarkozy to gloat that, with the appointment of a Frenchman, Michel Barnier (pictured above), at the helm of the unit responsible for rules on banks and other financial services companies throughout the 27-member EU, the City of London and the whole Anglo-Saxon model would be the ‘big loser’ and the previous excesses would be regulated out of existence.

What has happened? You would think we would all agree with him. But, there has been collective outrage. How dare he try to limit the market freedoms we so enjoyed and which has allowed the City to be the envy of the world and the driver of our prosperity.

Sorry, what prosperity? What system that is the envy of the world? Which people that deserve to be protected and rewarded?

Maybe, just maybe…Sarkozy is actually right?

The reaction shows that when business cultures clash it often reflects wider, deep-seated cultural differences. In this instance the papers have gone as far as comparing Sarkozy with De Gaulle and even Napoleon.

It appears that we can call our financiers a load of *ankers, but how dare anyone else.