Damn this guilt habit!

Damn this guilt habit!

I saw my cousin on the weekend (at a crazy 5th birthday party at Lollipops play land - kids know how to party hard!) He was busy fielding questions from family members about his previous job at the helm of a local branch of an investment bank. We knew that he was an investment banker, but I am sure most of us didn't think more on it other than that his (and his wife's) income had afforded them a magnificent cliff top home, and that he was "semi-retired" at 40 to spend time with his family (the inverted commas allow for the fact he still works more hours than most). But I can imagine he has recently been on the receiving end of some discomforting questions, snippets of which I heard on Saturday night. He is a very nice guy, with an even nicer wife (who seems to embody all the good aspects of US culture - open, warm, inclusive, laid back) and I felt momentarily sorry for him for being scrutinised by his family when he probably just wanted to jump on the bouncy castle with his kids.

That I was related to an investment banker also did not figure into my last post when I pretty much dumped them all in the same basket - acquisitive and self-serving. When I saw my cousin I had to check myself. I don't really think that they are all like that. However, I do think that there are particular industries that more likely to attract greed - and investment banking is one of them. And while I don't believe that a desire to make lots of moolah is dangerous per se, when it is combined with questionable ethics, and has broad impact, it is a problem. A problem that seems intractable.

Right, I am well over writing about things I know little about. Perhaps in my next post I can talk about the Herculean effort I put into cleaning that *@#*$*@ oven of ours on Sunday. I told my husband that it is the last oven I ever clean, and that if we need to clean the oven in whatever rental we move to when we are renovating, he is doing it. Our new oven will not exert these dainty fingers. Bless you De Dietrich, for developing pyrolytic technology.

Where did all the good guys go?

Where did all the good guys go?

Markets are feeling the full force of sub-prime mortgage crisis. We knew it would happen, but we didn't know how hard we were going to fall. It makes me wonder - where did all the decent, ethical business people in the financial services sector go to in the last decade? Did they get pushed off the back of a truck?

We will always have this problem - those who are concerned about the fellow inhabitants of this planet don't end up in finance companies or investment banks. They become humanitarians, public servants, counsellors, volunteer workers, politicians (yes, I know, not all politicians are there for altruistic reasons, but some must be!) Nobody runs a finance company because they want to make the world a better place. No-one becomes an investment banker because they care about the malaria epidemic or the plight of the working poor. They do it because they care about money and how it will make its way into their pockets. So why should this be a problem? Ideally, as well as making lots of money for themselves, they are providing a necessary service that moves money and capital efficiently to where it is needed, it assists in economic growth and we all benefit as a result. Because of the trickle down effect, even the poor and vulnerable are on the winning team.

Great in theory, but the pursuit of short term profit maximisation doesn't always align with economic growth and the needs of the people within that economy. The greed of an unethical few can drag the rest of us into the financial poo. It can cripple our economies. It can make the working poor, the unemployed poor. By shattering the economy it reduces the money available to deal with problems like malaria and AIDS. This is that other trickle down effect that they don't teach you about in Economics 101.