Every year the Chartered Banker Institute holds a competition to find the Young* Banker of the Year.
So I’ve just sent off my application form:
I’ll let you know how I do.
By the way, I was particularly impressed by the advertising poster for the competition, which appears to show a young banker taking a shit on London:
Surprisingly honest …
*It’s possible the fact I’m over 350 years old may count against me here. But I hope the overall strengths of the application will overcome this slight weakness.
Pride's Purge 
Vilifying individual bankers is a diversion for the naive and gullible. The real issue is banking regulation, which successive Labour and Tory governments have totally failed to address. Discuss… (if you’re interested in more than mindless rhetoric).
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nice one! >
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Love the poster. Is he thinking of doing a King Kong, or just taking a dump?
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But a goodly number of individual bankers took advantage of the regulation issue (or rather non regulation issue) to line their own pockets at the expense of everyone else.
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You’re a shoo in.
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Tom Pride is doing the government’s work by talking only about fuck ups, Ferraris and yachts. This is a deliberate tactic which diverts attention towards a few rich bankers and away from the real problem. It’s the framework which allows banks to make obscene amounts of money from society and not put it back into society which must be addressed.
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Your rhetorical strategy indicates that you do not wish this to be a genuine discursive exercise.
If it were, I’d suggest you have set up a false opposition between ‘vilifying individual bankers’ and regulating the banking system as a whole.
But vilifying individual bankers is:
i. A pretty good way of establishing a climate of opinion that will favour more regulation in the longer term.
ii. Useful in reducing the prestige attached to the financial sector in forming public opinion.
iii. Useful in making people think twice before adopting banking as a career aim.
I look forward to your response.
If it’s not mindless rhetoric.
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nosuchthingasthemarket – Or…
i) In order to get regulation you have to argue for regulation. Isn’t that a bit obvious?
ii) See iii)
iii) It’s useful in making people think that banking is an excellent career aim because it will probably make you rich.
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YOU’LL WIN..
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If only he was positioned just and inch to the right, he’d be experiencing what the rest of the country has been…
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an inch, even…
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I really like the look of this application for young banker of the year. Qualifications are excellent and aspirations are commendable. Only drawback is that there are a very large number with similar profiles and have honed their greed, incompetence and stupidity to perfection. Best of luck
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nosuchthingasthemarket – If your apparent desire for genuine discursive exercise is not empty try answering the point:
Is highlighting the luxurious lifestyle of some bankers really “Useful in reducing the prestige attached to the financial sector in forming public opinion”?
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Shouldn’t it be young wanker of the year 2016? Also, being the Phantom Plopper I resent the implication that anyone can take a larger shit than I can. Some people are larger shits that I have taken but none can match me in my plopping prowess.
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Difa. Nice to hear from you, and sorry for taking so long to get back to you – I forgot to tick the little box requesting notification on comments.
My initial response suggested that you had set up a false opposition between vilifying individual bankers and increasing regulation of the banking system. The furore and fall-out from the Panama Papers, with the explicit links it provides between the nature of the banking system and the people who have benefitted from it, appears to confirm this.
My suspicion is that a very large number of regulatory proposals (some more serious than others) will emerge as a result of citizen investigation into the searchable version of the Papers being issued tomorrow. Anger at the scandalous actions of individuals – including bankers and prominent politicians – will be the prime motivation for that research.
As for your other points.
i. We agree, partly. Arguing for regulation is pretty important in getting regulation.
But if solidly grounded economic and legal arguments for banking regulation were the only styles of argument necessary to make that change happen, then the NLR works of the 1960s castigating the amateurism and financial sector bias of British industry, or the bestselling books of Will Hutton in the 1990s, would have effected a sea change.
Equally important (if not more important) is the creation of a political and cultural climate in which immoral financial behaviour is condemned on that basis – and in which people who feel that ‘Greed is Bad’ feel comfortable in making their arguments.
ii and iii. We may disagree fundamentally on this. Ho hum. But I think it’s pretty rare for people to choose a career – or the perception they choose to encourage of their past career path – solely, or even primarily – by reference to money. Even (perhaps especially) the ultra-rich repeatedly seek to portray themselves as having done socially useful things – despite most of their wealth deriving simply from having a large amount of wealth in an era of retrogressive redistribution.
Like I said, we’ll probably disagree on this point. But our area of disagreement is capable of being a fertile one, rather than merely an ill-tempered one.
I think it’s likely that widespread moral condemnation of ‘banking’ as a career choice is useful, but unlikely to be enough to seriously damage the finance sector’s power amongst those starting a career. You clearly think that moral condemnation is just irrelevant.
Fine.
If what is important is the concrete structures, then it would be useful to examine exactly what can be done to cut off the supply of the next generation of merchant bankers, corporate financiers etc – or divert them on to other career paths.
Here’s some proposals on that basis – feel free to debate these, add more, etc.:
A campaign for all publicly-funded Business Schools to be cut, and their resources – including staff and buildings to be redistributed, as appropriate, between psychology, sociology, economics, politics, technology and science departments.
A requirement for all business and economics courses at A-level and higher to open with a module on economic crises.
A legal requirement for a special Act of Parliament / Assembly etc to be passed before any layer of government can use offshore accounts for sums greater than a certain amount.
A legal requirement for a special Act to be passed before a private company can be hired as consultant to public bodies for sums greater than a certain amount.
Look forward to hearing from you. I’ve ticked the box this time, so I will actually see your reply.
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