Banks: The New Untouchables

Let's face it, it's true isn't it? With today's bail out, British Banks are untouchable - fact. It's OK for manufacturing business to make lousy business decisions and go bust but banks? No. They can go on merrily paying themselves millions in bonuses no sweat, no sackings and let us taxpayers pick up the tab. I appreciate that to those of you who actually have money in the bank, the rescue might come as something of a relief but to those like me who are always in the red it is hard to comprehend what the government is doing.



I speak from experience. From 1972 until 1988 I was employed by one of the Big Four banks. At the time Bank Managers were pillars of the local society and when I became the youngest manager in the Liverpool District in about 1982 I felt that it was my duty to offer the customers sound and sensible advice and not to simply sell as many products as I could. Because of this I am quite proud to say that I would not sell endowment mortgages and when payment protection insurance was introduced it did not sound like the greatest product to me and I found a local insurance broker who could offer the same cover for a fraction of the price. OK so this didn't exactly endear me to my employers but if someone is mad keen to get you to sell something you start to think "why?" and the answer is not usually because it's good for the customer but because it's good for the seller. I was proved right on both counts with the endowment fiasco a few years ago and the recent protection insurance scandal. I realised that I was not cut out for banking when they tried to make me into a salesman and a shoddy one at that. The super duper profit making products were often sold by "inertia" selling. If you didn't tick the box, you got the product.

OK that's got that off my chest. And if you can now sleep better in the knowledge that your cash is safe then I am pleased for you.

Time for another competition I think. This one is for regular readers. The prize will be £30 off their order for the first customer to get it right.

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After yesterday's blog on put downs I got an email reminding me of another famous one from Winston Churchill. Late one evening shuffling along Whitehall's corridors of power in a somewhat inebriated state, Churchill was confronted by his secretary. "You're drunk Prime Minister." To which he replied "And you madam are ugly." Then after a pause "But I will be sober in the morning".