Are Bankers Good or Bad for Society (download)

Are bAnkers good or bAd for society? Chris Skinner, www.thefinanser.com Gresham College, 26th October 2009

Socially useful? “Some of it is socially useless activity” Adair Turner

“Banks have chased short term profits by introducing complex products of no real use to humanity” Stephen Green

“Don’t have headlines saying banks are ‘socially useless’, because they ain’t.” Victor Blank

“As society, we have benefited hugely from innovation and financial services is at the forefront.” Win Bischoff

AgendA bAnking is essentiAl for society bAnkers role in society bAnkers morAls And ethics bAnking for good or for bAd bAnkers todAy bAnkers tomorrow

revolutions Formalising commerce – the first time agriculture www.balatroltd.com

www.balatroltd.com

A Babylonian shekel coin minted much later under Persian rule (c. 300BCE).

http://www.josephinemaisonet.com/Photos/G oddesses/Inanna.jpg

“The most common communicatio problems that create stress in a marriage are usually related to finances and sex” www.divorce.com

My house was designated a house of prayer; You have made it a hangout for thieves.

UsUry

leverAge

risk

herd

Lex Pompeia

complexity

My role is to “find the chinks in the regulators’ armour” Salomon’s General Counsel, Donald Feuerstein

“In our view, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal. Warren Buffet Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2002

“It is not that humans have become any more greedy than in generations past. It is that the avenues to express greed have grown so enormously.” Alan Greenspan July 2002

leverAge risk herd complexity

leverAge networked complexity

Banks have written off $1.6 trillion so far Bloomberg

Our regulators were “asleep in the back shop while there was a mugging out front” John McFall

“A British bank is run with precision A British home requires nothing less! Tradition, discipline, and rules must be the tools Without them - disorder! Chaos! Moral disintegration! In short, we have a ghastly mess!”

“For people to have been selling products which they neither knew or understood – or, worse, did know and none the less did sell – is a profoundly moral issue.” Ken Costa

“To restore trust and confidence, we will need to recognise the moral dimension of what has happened, and to restore a proper sense of values in our corporate lives” Stephen Green

Victor Blank “You have to find where the problem lies ... Investment banking”

“Financial services innovation must be performed with foresight and regulation.” Win Bischoff

http://thefinanser.co.uk/fsclub/2009/02/the-new-eu-regulator-and-liquidity-risk.html

The Value of Bank Brands 2009

conclUsions

“If this crisis leads to a genuine reassessment of the role of ... banking ... it may come to rank as one of the great turning points in history.”

“The financial sector that is emerging from the crisis is even more riddled with moral hazard than the one that went into it.” Martin Wolf

“Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.” Warren Buffett

Are bAnkers good or bAd for society? Chris Skinner, www.thefinanser.com Gresham College, 26th October 2009

Are Bankers Good or Bad for Society (download)

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