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What will it take to bring the banks on board?
By Lauren | December 14, 2009
The Wall Street Journal reports today that President Obama is rapidly losing patience with the nation’s banking industry. Appearing on 60 Minutes last night, President Obama said, “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.” The President’s choice of words wasn’t especially tactful, but maybe tact isn’t what’s called for to address the apparent disconnect between the banking industry and the American public.
This recession is widely recognized as the worst since the Great Depression. The nation’s unemployment rate is reported at 10%, and an additional unspecified percentage of Americans have accepted pay cuts in order to keep their jobs. The credit crunch continues, making it difficult for small businesses to grow and hire. Times are so tough that kids are reportedly asking Santa for things like shoes and glasses this year. And what are the big banks doing? They’re frantically repaying the TARP money that bailed them out so they can continue to give multimillion dollar bonuses to their top executives while hitting their customers with a seemingly endless list of fees and penalties. And, while they’re at it, the banks are lobbying hard (spending the money from those fees and penalties, perhaps?) to limit the financial services reform laws that might prevent future meltdowns like the one we’ve just endured.
If you believe in free enterprise, it’s hard to argue against banks’ right to charge what the market will bear for their services and pay their top executives whatever they think they must. But the banking industry’s seeming obliviousness to how its behavior looks to average Americans is hard to fathom. It’s one of the hard truths of business: if industries don’t regulate themselves, the government will do it for them, often with a vengeance. The President is scheduled to meet today with some of the country’s top bankers. Here’s hoping they finally get the message.
To read the Wall Street Journal article, go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126073152465089651.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond.
Topics: Business Ethics, business communications, corporate responsibility, customer relations, ethics |
January 7th, 2010 at 7:37 am
I opened a mock forex account and the broker calls me all the time trying to force me to put money in my account. How desperate are these guys for accounts?
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